Today’s New York Times has the story … IBM plans to put its patent applications on line, for public view (presumably earlier than they would be published by the PTO, at the 18-month mark).

From the story …

The policy, being announced today, includes standards like clearly identifying the corporate ownership of patents, to avoid filings that cloak authorship under the name of an individual or dummy company. It also asserts that so-called business methods alone — broad descriptions of ideas, without technical specifics — should not be patentable. … “The larger picture here is that intellectual property is the crucial capital in a global knowledge economy,” said Samuel J. Palmisano, I.B.M.’s chief executive. “If you need a dozen lawyers involved every time you want to do something, it’s going to be a huge barrier. We need to make sure that intellectual property is not used as a barrier to growth in the future.”

An experiment to keep an eye on.

Concurrently, IBM has released a new report called “Building a New IP Marketplace.” It’s on the web, of course.

UPDATE: Andy Updegrove, at Consortiuminfo.org, offers a detailed analysis here. [Hat tip to James DeLong at IPCentral.info.]