Last year, the European Patent Office (EPO) issued far fewer patents than in 2006. The Munich patent authorities have announced that they approved exactly 54,699 patent applications for commercial protection, 12.9 per cent fewer than in the previous year.

Patent Office to Take Second Look at Meritless Claims Threatening Mobile Information Access. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has won reexamination from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) of a bogus patent threatening mobile information access. The reexamination order is the third granted by the PTO after challenges from EFF's Patent Busting Project.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is experimenting with a program that calls on the wisdom of the masses to help patent examiners better review applications. The program, Peer-to-Patent, publishes applications on the Web and asks the public to help determine whether the idea already is in use.

Open-source and free software fans who despise software patents shouldn't look for an ally in the head of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Patent Commissioner Jon Dudas says his office is all about staying "technology neutral," so long as the invention meets certain standards.

The Peer-To-Patent Project is a new initiative by New York Law School's Do Tank in cooperation with the U.S. Patent Office to use open source and open knowledge techniques to help stop the deluge of bad software patents in America.

On June 15, the New York Law School's Institute for Information Law and Policy, in cooperation with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), launched the Peer-to-Patent community patent review pilot program.

A federal judge has temporarily blocked the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office from enforcing new rules that would impose some roadblocks on patent applications.

In a recently published decision (PDF file), the US patent office has declared US company Blackboard’s e-learning patent invalid. The patent office rejected all 44 claims in the disputed US patent number 6,988,138, (“Alcorn patent”) for a system for teaching in a virtual classroom using the internet, including chat, a virtual blackboard and provision of teaching materials.

Under new leadership, the US Patent and Trademark Office has begun to publish data on how long does it really takes to get a final answer on whether you will receive a patent. Answer, six years. The backlog of patents is almost 730 000.

Perhaps this will be the beginning of a patents reform?