You might be "+5 Insightful," but you're also wrong. Inventors have a 1-year window after publishing in which they can file their application. This is true under both the old laws and the new. I love how the people with mod points don't let a little thing like not knowing anything about patent law get in the way of their pronouncing a post that (incorrectly) tries to explain a point of patent law as "insightful."

Okay, name some prior art examples of this patent's claim 1. We'll wait...

Really? You think there are sites already doing this?

Claim 1 is:1. A method for representing ownership of an asset in a social network environment, the method comprising: receiving a request from a first user of the social network environment to purchase the asset for a second user; recording information about a purchase of the asset from a vendor; associating, by a server for the social networking environment, the purchased asset with a profile of the second user; sending for display to a viewing user an association between the purchased asset and the second user on a feed display page; sending for display to the viewing user, in connection with the association between the purchased asset and the second user, information indicating that a third user, with whom the viewing user has established a connection in the social network, owns the asset, and information including a name of the first user who gave the asset to the second user, on the feed display page.

So please, by all means tell me what sites are already doing this. Since you think there are lots of sites already doing this, it should be quite easy for you to list a few. I can't wait...

No, it's not. Slashdot's mod up/down system would only be relevant prior art if it was able to automatically rate new comments by analyzing the ratings of similar previous comments. But I love how it's impossible for there to be a patent story on slashdot without a hoard of people shouting "prior art! prior art!" about irrelevant bullshit because they haven't actually read the patent...

Only if slashdot's moderation system automatically detected and censored new posts that were very similar to previous posts that had been moded down.

Oh, you DID actually read the patent, right?

The summary of the patent does not actually describe what the patent is about. I know, it's shocking to think that such a thing could happen on slashdot.

Claim 1 is: 1. A computer-implemented method of approving a document, the method comprising: analyzing content of a first document to identify one or more first portions, wherein the first portions are visual, textual, or audio portions; identifying one or more second documents that are similar to the first document, wherein the one or more second documents have second portions that are visual, textual, or audio portions; based upon computer code that describes the first portions and the second portions, determining whether any of the first portions are substantially identical to the second portions that have been predetermined to be unacceptable; and approving the first document only if none of the first portions are substantially identical to the second portions that have been predetermined to be unacceptable.

But let's not do anything crazy like actually reading the patent before we start discussing it...

I do NOT see how this would help the backlog. It's not going to speed up the examination process any. And under a first-to-file system, companies are encouraged to file an application for every tiny little incremental improvement, rather than a single application at the end of their R&D cycle. It will probably greatly increase the number of applications.

The bargain inherent in the patent system is that you get patent protection in exchange for teaching your idea to the world. If you invent something but keep it secret, you haven't fulfilled your part of the bargain and you don't deserve anything, because you haven't actually benefited society yet. It makes sense that the patent system would reward the first person to actually teach their invention to the world, rather than rewarding someone who invented something and then sat quietly on it.

The PTO has about a 25% allowance rate, so assuming IBM's applications are "average," they would have to file about 20000 applications to get those 5000 patents. Of course, they might have a strategy of filing tons of very narrow (and so easy to get) applications rather than fewer broader (and so harder to get) applications.

Software or an algorithm AREN'T patentable. If you submit a patent application for some software code or an algorithm per se it will be immediately rejected as non-patentable subject matter.

Computer code is not patentable. If you actually read a "software patent," you'll see that they claim something along the lines of "A computer-based method for doing X, comprising using a computer to calculate A, B, and C, running operation Y on values A, B and C, then doing Z." If you try to file an application for "a computer program for doing X, comprising..." it will be swiftly rejected as not patentable subject matter.

Examiners receive work credit for examining amended applications or applications in which the applicant has requested a continued examination after a final rejection has been issued. It is actually much more work to allow a patent than to reject it, since as soon as your find prior art that reads on an application, you're done and you can move on to the next one. If you don't find prior art, on the other hand, it means you'll have to spend a LOT of time carefully reviewing anything and everything that might be relevant, or run the risk of getting nailed by Quality Assurance later on.

An examiner's work is regularly reviewed by the "quality assurance" people, a sinister and mysterious group that pulls a sampling of recent work and scrutinizes it. Anything that an examiner allows is much more likely to be reviewed, and will generally be reviewed in much more detail, than something that they reject. The "safe" way for an examiner to slack off without too much risk of getting into trouble is to slap together bullshit obviousness rejections, since the quality assurance people focus so much on anything that gets allowed and not so much on things that get rejected. To balance out the incentives that the Quality Assurance people might give an examiner to just reject everything, applicants have various options for appealing rejections that they feel are improper.

He said that the PTO uses allowed applications as the metric for efficiency. That is most certainly bullshit, regardless of any of the points that you raised.

The law says that a patent can't be granted on an invention that would be obvious to one of ORDINARY skill in the art. Something might be obvious to a person of extraordinary intelligence, skill, and experience, but that doesn't mean it's not patentable.

As for something being obvious just because it was developed nearly-simultaneously, you ignore the fact that competing companies often invest vast amounts of money and manpower into researching the same problem, only to come to about the same solution. I wouldn't say that an invention was obvious just because two different entities independently invented it if both entities had to invest millions of dollars and thousands of man-hours into the research.

What a ridiculous assertion. If two companies each set out to solve a problem, and after each investing millions of dollars and tens of thousands of man-hours into the research eventually come up with very similar solutions, you think that means the solution was "obvious"?