It's a first for the federal government: This spring, the Patent and Trademark Office is beginning a pilot program that will post patent applications on the internet and open them up to comments and a community rating system. The system resembles the look of the user-created online encyclopedia, Wikipedia. So far, the list of volunteers willing to try the new patent system includes Microsoft, Intel, Hewlett-Packard and IBM.

In the past, most federal agencies have invited parties to weigh in on proceedings, but never to the degree this project does. So why now? Thanks to the overwhelming workload of the agency's 4,000 examiners, they've been left little time to thoroughly conduct their reviews. So, the site will allow examiners to access a world of technical experts to aid them.  

The pilot program's designers, however, point out that because of the large amounts of money riding on patent decisions, the incentive to manipulate the system is quite massive. But, overall, some say the new online office should make the patent process a bit more democratic. "The idea is to make something as important as decision-making about innovation transparent to the public and more accountable to the public," says New York Law Professor Beth Simone Noveck.