An intriguing account of Beth Noveck's first steps that led to the development of Peer to Patent is described by Jeff Howe in his new book, Crowdsourcing: Why the Power of the Crowd is Driving the Future of Business (Crown Business, 2008). Howe gives an account of how a chance invitation extended to Beth Noveck in 2005 to a gethering of "some of the smartest people in business into a Manhattan conference room to talk about the future of business" turned into an "intense conversation" between Noveck and another invited guest seated next to her, David Kappos - head of IBM's patent portfolio. "When the group broke for lunch, Kappos and Noveck remained in the conference room, locked in an animated discussion" writes Howe. According to Howe, Novecks revolutionary ideas about improving the patent system sounded familiar to the man responsible for managing intellectual property holdings exceeding twenty six thousand patents. Howe explains that while there were doubts about "asking the U.S. government to cede its sovereignty over granting patents", in December 2006 Noveck was invited to meet with Attorneys from the patent office. Soon after, with participation from other major technology companies and the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), Peer to Patent was publicly announced in January 2007, and officially launched in June 2007.
Jeff Howe is a contributing editor for Wired Magazine and introduced crowdsourcing in an article he wrote for Wired in 2006. His book takes a deeper look into the growth of this phenomenon of crowdsourcing, and how "crowdsourcing activates the transformative power of today's technology, liberating the latent potential within us all"
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