Article One Partners (AOP) is an online prior art search and intellectual property research crowdsourcing community.
[2] AOP was founded in November 2008 by attorney Cheryl Milone and Steven Powell [3] It was backed by venture capital firms Alleghany Capital Corporation,[4] General Catalyst Partners, and the former head of intellectual property policy and strategy at Microsoft Marshall Phelps, with investments totaling $15 million by January 2013.
[10][11] AOP Connect is a technology platform that supports the worldwide crowdsourcing process and delivers value added results to clients.
[13] In March 2011, Article One Partners launched community examination of patents owned by Interval Research Corporation, a non-practicing entity co-founded by Paul Allen and David Liddle.
The patents were the subject of a lawsuit filed by Interval Research Corp. against defendants Apple, Google, Facebook, Yahoo!, AOL, eBay, Netflix, OfficeMax, and Staples.