A NEW website that is devoted to busting questionable patents handed out
its first prizes last week. Four winners each received a $10,000 bounty
for providing examples of “prior art” that could invalidate targeted
patents.
BountyQuest (www.bountyquest.com) says its mission is to help get rid of
patents that should never have been granted in the first place. The bounties are
put up by other companies—often ones that are being sued for violating the
patents in question. You get the bounty for finding suitable prior art, though
the patent is not then automatically invalid. Someone still has to go…
