That is such a cool scheme. I'm glad somebody is actively seeking to invalidate bogus patents. I'm not sure how they're getting money - is they idea that people that join up donate to the cash pool they use to reward people who find prior art on existing patents?

Also it doesn't go quite as far as I'd like - it reduces the incentive to lodge bogus patents (as hopefully they'll stand for less time), but I'd still like their to some level of penalty to the originator when bogus patents are overturned (but that's a law change - somebody pointed out on a previous thread apparently Texas now has a law penalizing people that bring frivolous suits - not quite the same as filing for frivolous patents, but I still like it).

Edit: ah, followed links to http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2008/11/startup-crow... Apparently they take research requests from clients, presumably for money. Not quite as cool as I hoped - cost might still be out of realm of startup defence. Also - Article One Partners applied for a patent for their system of crowdsourcing patent invalidation :o)