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According to a report in Tech Daily Dose, the Peer-to-Patent project, a joint effort between the U.S.-PTO and New York Law School's Center for Patent Innovation aimed at improving patent quality by connecting the Patent and Trademark Office with outside scientific and technical experts, has effectively shut down after a two year test run and accolades from the U.S. White House. The U.S.-PTO elected to close Peer-to-Patent to new applications "until it can complete a full evaluation of the impact the project has had on the patent examination process", the report says. The function of the project has been to provide a platform on which virtually everybody could

• Review and discuss selected U.S. patent applications submitted for open review.
• Research published resources relevant to the patent application's claims.
• Upload and explain prior art for the community.
• Annotate, evaluate, and rank each other's prior art.
• Create the "top ten" list of prior art references forwarded to the USPTO.

I assume that the order of magnitude of voluntary contributors simply did not live up to the expectations.

The Peer-To-Patent project had been endorsed, inter alia, by Mr David Kappos in his capacity as VP and Assistant General Counsel of IBM in charge of Intellectual Property, now selected to be formally appointed as next Director of U.S.-PTO.