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USPTO to hold Open Source Software Community Meeting February 16, 2006

Posted by J Matthew Buchanan at February 8, 2006 09:30 AM

USPTO to hold Open Source Software Community Meeting February 16, 2006

The Department of Commerce’s United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has created a partnership with the open source community to ensure that patent examiners have improved access to all available prior art relating to software code during the patent examination process.

In December the USPTO representatives met with members of the open source software community, which provided an opportunity for members to discuss with the USPTO prior art access issues related to software patent quality. The meeting focused on getting the best prior art references to the examiner during the initial examination process.

As a follow-up to their December 6th meeting, USPTO representatives will hold another meeting on February 16th, 2006. This meeting will be open to the public and will focus on further developing previously discussed initiatives as well as any new prior art initiatives offered at that time.

All members of the open source software community are encouraged to attend. However, space is limited so please register early. Only the first 220 registrations can be accepted. For additional information go to http://www.uspto.gov/web/patents/opensource2006.htm.

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