Social networking comes to legal industry with patent marketplace

Having mentioned that social networking was coming to businesses just yesterday, we may have our first legal social networking site.

LegalForce, an online patent marketplace that mixes aspects of a social network launched this week, per reports from paidContent.

As a search engine, LegalForce lets users research patents. Users can also access contact information for all patent attorneys in the US, and some attorneys internationally. Furthermore, users can contact other members within the LegalForce network. The use of videos is primarily intended to assist users in sharing ideas. At some point, LegalForce will allow downloads of all U.S. patents and searches for profiles of inventors, owners and attorneys associated with particular patents.

I don’t know enough about patents to say whether LegalForce is of value. I’d be interested in what innovative patent attorneys like Dennis Crouch, Steve Nipper, and Doug Sorocco think.

I have never heard of LegalForce before. It’s very possible they’re being discussed in the ‘patent blogosphere.’ However, if not, it’s not a good sign to first hear of a community site via its desire to raise money as was the case via paidContent. I’d expect to have community members acting as evangelists for the community spreading the word.

Update: IMPACT, a UK Intellectual property and IT law blog, gives a detailed review of LegalForce and its features and gives it the thumbs up.

I think there is a lot of potential with their service and the opportunity to create a genuine marketplace service for which there are no big players at all.

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