[mindviews]

There is already some crowdsourcing of patent research being done like at http://www.articleonepartners.com/ which essentially offers monetary rewards for the top contributions of prior-art or whatever the particular study asks for. Granted, you don't get to pick which patents are listed to research, but I suspect this sort of bounty program greatly lowers the cost and increases the breadth of material available to patent researchers for any number of purposes. And if patents can be challenged for a reasonably small cost, that should mean more silly patents actually get challenged.