Will the Stream follow the Web?

This article was in my Twine feed this morning (BTW, if you haven't signed up at Twine yet - do it now!). An excerpt:

The Web lives on top of the Internet's infrastructure much like software and documents live on top of an operating system on a computer. And just as the Web once emerged on top of the Internet, now something new is emerging on top of the Web: I call this the Stream. The Stream is what the Web is thinking and doing, right now. It's our collective stream of consciousness.

So is the stream yet another step toward our ultimate evolution to a soulless Borg-like existence? Well, not exactly. But yes.

[Is the Stream what comes after the Web?]

U.S. Patent Office experiments with crowdsourcing to streamline patent review process

Inventors have a lot of issues with the inner workings of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. There's no question that the application and approval process is overly long, and overworked and uninformed patent examiners often grant patents to dubious or "obvious" innovations. The current system is particularly burdensome for the small technology startups for whom time to market is critical to their success.

Seeking to remedy these problems, in 2007 the Patent Office began an experiment in crowdsourcing with the objective of speeding up the patent assessment and approval process and improving the quality of the applications submitted. Under the program called Peer-to-Patent the patent applications are posted to the web for all to see and those with relevant expertise can pass along their input to the Office and the applicants. This collective wisdom of the crowd helps the patent examiners to identify applications for something that's already been invented or questionable merit.

Not surprisingly technology companies are the biggest supporters of this experiment and include IBM, HP, and Microsoft but clearly the smaller inventors with limited financial and legal resources would stand to benefit from this the most.

The Peer-to-Patent web site is being managed by the New York Law School's Institute for Information Law and Policy.

[CNN via Slashdot]