[Random-bits] bountyquest.com

[James Love]

http://www.bountyquest.com/

See AP Story:

New Web-based Bounty System
The Associated Press, Wed 18 Oct 2000

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) - A new startup hopes to appeal to the mercenary
and educated masses, rewarding individuals with bounties of $10,000 or
more when they provide information that helps companies settle
high-stakes patent disputes.

By using the power of the Web and cash incentives, Boston-based
BountyQuest Corp. is positioning itself as a much-needed vehicle to get
the hard-to-find evidence of so-called ``prior art'' that can quash or
validate a patent - a tool some say is increasingly being used by
companies to not only protect their innovations but stifle their
competitors.

Until now, such searches have been left in the hands of the U.S. Patent
and Trademark Office and, more recently, a growing legion of lawyers and
private patent research firms, all of whom rely largely on database
searches.

``But in a world where documents are evanescent - like how someone can
put an idea in the form of a Web page and then change the page - it's a
hard problem,'' said Tim O'Reilly, a publisher of software books and a
vocal critic of the patent system. ``It's all moving so fast, and
imagine the patent office looking for that stuff.''

  [snip'

-- 
James Love, Consumer Project on Technology
v. 1.202.387.8030, fax 1.202.234.5176
love@cptech.org, http://www.cptech.org