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  1. nowa
    August 24th, 2009 at 13:39 | #1
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    We submitted two patent applications specifically designed for Peer to Patent review. As a consequence of these designs, we had the two most active review teams this year. We also set up discussions on Linked In and professional blogs in the fields of the invention.

    And yet, the best prior art we came up with was from an acquaintance who saw a newspaper article about our inventions and sent me a link to something similar. http://www.marketsandpatents.com/pdfs/stamford_advocate_sober_teen.pdf

    Bottom line? Open review has promise, but you never know where your best prior art is going to come from.

  2. Bob Stembridge, Customer Relations Manager, Thomson Reuters
    August 26th, 2009 at 06:40 | #2
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    That reminds me of a piece of prior art cited against a British patent application, GB 2117179, for an entry signal system for pets, e.g. a dog. Essentially, the invention is a doorbell set low down so that the dog can press it to ask to be let in through the dog-flap.

    The story goes that the examiner was eating breakfast one morning and his son was reading his favourite comic, “The Beano”, at the breaklfast table. Lo and behold, one of the comic frames on the front cover had a drawing of Gnasher, Dennis the Menace’s dog, pressing a button next to the front door with his nose asking to be let into the house! The search report citation is “The Beano, No. 2015, Page 1″ if anyone cares to check.

    As you say, you never know where your best prior art is going to come from!

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