Patent goon squad

The general idea would be for scientists (who might be so inclined) to actively keep an eye on new patent applications in their fields of interest in order to push back on overly-broad patents. I think there would be an interest in this sort of thing for synthetic biology at a minimum, but the feasibility is an open question :)

I currently get automatic alerts for a slew of RSS feeds, scientific papers in synthbio, and every utterance of "openwetware" on the web, so it shouldn't be too tough to put X relevant patents in front of me every day.

Open Questions

Please add/edit -- or answer!

• How hard is it to filter patents via existing search tools (e.g. into sub-fields)?
• What is the number of 'biology' patent applications submitted each day?
• Can you get access to the applications early enough in the process to effect the outcome?
• Others?

Background

• The US patent office sounds like it might be interested in community input (Washington Post).

Participants

• Hanna Breetz, Technology and Policy Program at MIT
• Jason Kelly, BE at MIT