I actually wanted to create something like this a few months ago, but the idea never got any momentum. Instead, I've been working on software that facilitates prior art search by semantically analyzing "literature," generally. I'm primarily focused on using genetic algorithms to construct a complex search query (compatible with LexisNexis/Westlaw) to find even more prior art (in the form of research articles and whatnot) -- not just patents. Luckily, every patent issued since 1976 already has a full-text version, and there are OCR'd versions of the patents from around 1910-1976 available on google. Unfortunately, academia is much larger than just the patent database, so it's important to broaden our searches further.
I was hoping to use this program to build support for, and ultimately raise enough money to request, ex parte reexaminations of issued patents.
Would any of you have interest if I kept pushing for that idea?
Good question. Right now, Westlaw charges something like $100 per search in ALLCASES, which is their database of all federal and state court opinions ever written. Just to retrieve a single document by citation is something like $10.
The general trick is to try to craft a very broad 'initial' search that will encapsulate all of your results; you can create sub-searches within that set of retrieved documents (limited to at most around 3,000) at no additional cost.
I was hoping to use this program to build support for, and ultimately raise enough money to request, ex parte reexaminations of issued patents.
Would any of you have interest if I kept pushing for that idea?