(That is a mouthful of P's).  Seems the Patent and Trademark Office is about to launch its test project whereby certain inventors can elect to have their patent applications available for review over the Internet, where anyone can comment on them, primarily for the purposes of identifying relevant prior art.  Of course, that leads to the potential problem of the credibility of those making the comments.  To solve that credibility issue, the USPTO will use a reputation rating system similar to the public feedback systems used by Slashdot to rate it's commentators, and Amazon to rate its reviewers.  Ultimately the "Top Ten" comments will be passed on to the Patent Examiner for consideration.  The hope is that this will be wildly successful and lead to long term patent reform, and it has the backing of some technology industry heavyweights.    From the Community Patent Review Project website:

The patent system needs our help. The United States Patent Office is actively seeking ways to bring greater expertise to bear on the review of patent applications and ensure that only worthwhile inventions receive the patent monopoly. Currently, underpaid and overwhelmed examiners struggle under the backlog of applications. Under pressure to expedite review, patents for unmerited inventions are approved.

Sponsored by Computer Associates, General Electric, Hewlett Packard, IBM, Microsoft, Red Hat, the MacArthur Foundation, and the Omidyar Network, the Community Patent Review project seeks to create a peer review system for patents that exploits network technology to enable innovation experts to inform the patent examination procedure. In every field of scientific endeavor, peer review is a critical quality control mechanism to improve innovation. Throughout the public sector both peer review and citizen consultation are either legally mandated or practiced as a way to inform policymaking.

The Community Patent Review project aims to design and pilot an online system for peer review of patents. The Community Patent system will support a network of experts to advise the Patent Office on prior art as well as to assist with patentability determinations. By using social software, such as social reputation, collaborative filtering and information visualization tools, we can apply the “wisdom of the crowd” – or, more accurately the wisdom of the experts – to complex social and scientific problems. This could make it easier to protect the inventor’s investment while safeguarding the marketplace of ideas.

Washington Post Article