Favorite Good news: the Senate Judiciary Committee has dropped one of the two terrible patent bills it was considering, the patent-troll-enabling Patent Eligibility Restoration Act (PERA). Bad news: the committee is still pushing the PREVAIL Act, a bill that would hamstring the U.S.’s most effective system for invalidating bad patents. PREVAIL is a windfall for…
All posts tagged Patents
Tell Congress To Stop These Last-Minute Bills That Help Patent Trolls
Favorite Update 11/14/2024: The PERA and PREVAIL patent bills were pulled at the last minute today, without getting a committee vote. Senators are right to have concerns with these deeply flawed bills. We hope to engage with the next Congress on real patent fixes—changes that will create a more fair system for small companies and everyday users…
Judge’s Investigation Into Patent Troll Results In Criminal Referrals
Favorite In 2022, three companies with strange names and no clear business purpose beyond patent litigation filed dozens of lawsuits in Delaware federal court, accusing businesses of all sizes of patent infringement. Some of these complaints claimed patent rights over basic aspects of modern life; one, for example, involved a patent that pertains to the…
Patient Rights and Consumer Groups Join EFF In Opposing Two Extreme Patent Bills
Favorite Update 9/26/24: The hearing and scheduled committee vote on PERA and PREVAIL was canceled. Supporters can continue to register their opposition via our action, as these bills may still be scheduled for a vote later in 2024. The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee is set to vote this Thursday on two bills that could significantly empower patent trolls. The…
Victory! EFF Supporters Beat USPTO Proposal To Wreck Patent Reviews
Favorite The U.S. patent system is broken, particularly when it comes to software patents. At EFF, we’ve been fighting hard for changes that make the system more sensible. Last month, we got a big victory when we defeated a set of rules that would have mangled one of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO)’s…
EFF Appeals Order Denying Public Access to Patent Filings
Favorite It’s bad enough when a patent holder enforcing their rights in court try to exclude the public from those fights. What’s even worse is when courts endorse these secrecy tactics, just as a federal court hearing an EFF unsealing motion ruled in May. EFF continues to push for greater transparency in the case, Entropic…
EFF Seeks Greater Public Access to Patent Lawsuit Filed in Texas
Favorite You’re not supposed to be able to litigate in secret in the U.S. That’s especially true in a patent case dealing with technology that most internet users rely on every day. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what’s happening in a case called Entropic Communications, LLC v. Charter Communications, Inc. The parties have made so much of…
Fixing a gap in the SEP regulation
Favorite In OSI’s feedback to the European Commission’s proposed Standard Essential Patent (SEP) Regulation (SEP-R), OSI recommended that the legislation add a waiting period for patent claims registered under the regulation as standard-essential after the standard has been ratified. The recommendation was based on the social purpose behind tolerating the presence of royalty-due patents in…
How To Fight Bad Patents: 2023 Year In Review
Favorite At EFF, we believe that all the rights we have in the offline world–to speak freely, create culture, play games, build things and do business–must hold up in the digital world, as well. EFF’s longstanding project of fighting for a more balanced, just patent system has always borne free expression in mind. And patent…
Is Landmark Technology’s Two-Decade Patent Assault On E-Commerce Finally Over?
Favorite Landmark Technology’s U.S. Patent No. 7,010,508, and its predecessor, are very likely two of the most-abused patents in U.S. history. These patents, under two different owners, have been used to threaten thousands of small businesses since 2001. In just one 18-month period, the ‘508 patent was the subject of more than 1,800 patent demand…