Crowdsourcing Patent Policy Reform

Trolling Effects is an interesting effort at using crowds to build a coalition of the willing to change federal policy. In this case the policies have to do with the patent system, the coalition to be built includes anyone receiving a demand letter from a "patent assertion entity" and organizations interested in innovation, ownership, and idea use in the digital age.

The idea is to develop a database of demand letters and a crowd of peers to help fight off the organizations that issue these letters and change the policies which regulate them.

The project is managed as a project of the Electronic Frontier Foundation with support from a coalition of nonprofits, including 

• App Developers Alliance
• Ask Patents
• Engelberg Center on Innovation Law & Policy at NYU School of Law
• Engine Advocacy
• Public Knowledge
• PUBPAT
• Samuelson Law, Technology & Public Policy Clinic at Berkeley Law

Not too much of a surprise that nonprofits that focus on internet freedom would turn to the internet to help with policy change. Do you have any other examples of such crowdsourced efforts (not just petitions or email blasts, but crowd-built shared resources?)

HT @juliepsamuels of #EFF for pointing me to this.