[veidr]

Fuck yeah. Applying crowdsourcing to prior art discovery is probably the most viable treatment for improving the USA's patentile dysfunction problem, due to:

a.) low-cost

b.) high potential for busting garbage patents

c.) low potential for abuse/trolling/making-things-worse

With respect to (c), the most obvious attack vector for Myhrvoldian corporo-fascists would be DOS/dilution-via-huge-numbers-of-paid-shills. But I think that's why Stack Overflow's backing is exciting; they are Internet-scale.

[gpcz]

I just hope a patent troll doesn't sue Stack Exchange for patent infringement in order to bring this service offline...

[iamgoat]

On the contrary, I would love to see what happens if they try. It would get the right kind of attention. This service is a great step in the right direction.