Fuck yeah. Applying crowdsourcing to prior art discovery is probably the most viable treatment for improving the USA's patentile dysfunction problem, due to:
a.) low-cost
b.) high potential for busting garbage patents
c.) low potential for abuse/trolling/making-things-worse
With respect to (c), the most obvious attack vector for Myhrvoldian corporo-fascists would be DOS/dilution-via-huge-numbers-of-paid-shills. But I think that's why Stack Overflow's backing is exciting; they are Internet-scale.
On the contrary, I would love to see what happens if they try. It would get the right kind of attention. This service is a great step in the right direction.
a.) low-cost
b.) high potential for busting garbage patents
c.) low potential for abuse/trolling/making-things-worse
With respect to (c), the most obvious attack vector for Myhrvoldian corporo-fascists would be DOS/dilution-via-huge-numbers-of-paid-shills. But I think that's why Stack Overflow's backing is exciting; they are Internet-scale.