Patentlens.comPatent Lens is a worldwide, open-access, free full-text patent informatics resource. It serves as the cyberinfrastructure platform for the Initiative for Open Innovation (IOI).
We created the Patent Lens to create transparency in the patent system, and to serve the public worldwide as a platform resource to explore, understand and improve its impact on society.
The effects of the patent system as it works now may not match the original intent to benefit society.
The patent system was created to advance societal benefit by encouraging public disclosure of inventions and clear definition of each invention, in exchange for a strictly limited monopoly. The intent is that the invention may be used wherever and whenever the patent monopoly is not in force.
The trouble is that unless information is readily available about whose patents are in force over what technology where, the system doesn't work well.
People may unwittingly infringe patents they don't know about, avoid areas of innovation in which they are entitled to be creative, or make poor investments based on incomplete information about which rights are granted and who holds these rights.
The Patent Lens informatics tools can assist the user to determine the boundaries of intellectual property constraints on deliverable innovations, and usable building blocks for future innovations.
The key to the Patent Lens is that we are creating an integrated, worldwide, open-source and open access resource that will allow community-developed analytical tools, patent landscapes and decision support software to be created and shared. We want innovators worldwide to make better and more informed decisions.
CAMBIA is also developing legal instruments for advancing what we call 'Freedom to Cooperate', through maintaining capability to use technology among multiple parties that agree to an open, mutual non-assertion agreement, called a Concordance (see more).