BountyQuest encourages scientists, engineers, professional
researchers or any people with specialised knowledge to find
evidence critical to issues of patent validity and share this
information with companies involved in patent disputes.
Currently, US companies spend $4 billion per year investigating
the validity of patents, frequently after being sued for violating
a patent they believe does not represent true innovation.
Before awarding a patent, the US Patent Office does its best to
search for "prior art," or evidence that helps determine whether
the invention or process in question is actually new. However,
because these examinations are largely limited to information held
in databases or listed on the internet, they may not capture
relevant knowledge that exists in off-line publications and papers,
or in other on-line resources.
BountyQuest essentially creates a human search engine of
knowledgeable "Bounty Hunters" who track down this type of fugitive
information for cash rewards. BountyQuest rewards start at $10,000
and could go higher than $1 million, depending on the value of the
information to the company searching for it.
After a Bounty Hunter submits information related to a posting,
BountyQuest will work with the company that posted the bounty to
determine whether the submission meets the necessary criteria.
All bounties will be held in escrow by BountyQuest and paid to
the first Bounty Hunter who submits complete, matching
information
"Patents are a double-edged sword. While they encourage
creativity and the introduction of new products that improve lives,
they can also stifle competition, particularly when they don't
represent genuine innovation," says Charles Cella, founder and CEO
of BountyQuest and a former patent lawyer.
"Finding information related to patent
validity can be like looking for the proverbial needle in a
haystack it could be written in another language, published
in an out-of-date technical manual, or hidden amongst other data on
an obscure web site."
"BountyQuest taps into the world's knowledge market to uncover
this hard-to-find information, which can be used not only to weed
out bad patents, but also to validate good ones," Cella said.
Among the investors in the start-up are Amazon.com CEO Jeff
Bezos and publisher Tim O’Reilly, both of whom engaged in
well-publicised debates over the issue of business method patents
following Amazon.com’s decision to sue Barnes & Noble.com for
alleged infringement of its 1-Click shopping method patent.
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