Description
The focus of the site will be a crowdsourced effort to find prior art related to patents that might prove them invalid. The idea is that when a patent application comes up for approval, or perhaps is used in a suit, it can be posted on AskPatents.com. (Because patents’ validity is often based on whether they really are covering something that has not been done before, an assertion of prior art can often be used in defense of one, or to invalidate the patent’s claims in the case of an application.)
SOURCE LINK to full article:
http://techcrunch.com/2012/09/20/stack-exchange-links-up-with-ustpo-for-community-patent-project-askpatents-com-for-prior-art/