Favorite Experts from the world’s top engineering programs have come together to share knowledge about medical technology, hoping to make life-saving treatments more widely available. Importantly, they’re ensuring that patents, copyrights, and other legal restrictions don’t get between that knowledge and the people who need it most. Open Licenses Provide Life-Saving Technology in a Crisis…
All posts tagged Reclaim Invention
Stupid Patent of the Month: Storing Files in Folders
Favorite Our ongoing Reclaim Invention campaign urges universities not to sell patents to trolls. This month’s stupid patent provides a good example of why. US Patent No. 8,473,532 (the ’532 patent), “Method and apparatus for automatic organization for computer files,” began its life with publicly-funded Louisiana Tech University. But in September last year, it was…
One Step Closer to Reclaiming University Innovation From Trolls
Favorite Last year, EFF, along with our partner organizations, launched Reclaim Invention, a campaign to encourage universities across the country to commit to adopting patent policies that advance the public good. Reclaim Invention asks universities to focus on by bringing their inventions to the public, rather than selling or licensing them to patent assertion entities…
Patent Trolls Undermine Open Access
Favorite This Open Access Week, the global open access community has a lot to celebrate. Hundreds of universities around the world have adopted open access policies asking faculty to publish their research in open access journals or archive them in open repositories. A few years ago, open access publishing was barely recognized on the fringes…
Inside Intellectual Ventures’ Portfolio: Nearly 500 University Patents
Favorite Harvard researcher Yarden Katz has just published some fascinating findings on which universities have sold patents to notorious patent-holding company Intellectual Ventures (IV). Of the nearly 30,000 active patents that IV lists publicly, 470 of them were originally assigned to universities—a total of 61 institutions. Katz explains how he arrived at these numbers: How…
Legislation to Reclaim University Invention from the Trolls
Favorite EFF recently launched Reclaim Invention, a project to encourage universities to manage their patent portfolios in a way that maximizes the public benefit. Specifically, we’ve urged universities to sign a Public Interest Patent Pledge not to sell or exclusively license patents to patent assertion entities, also known as patent trolls. EFF is proud to…
Tell Your University: Don’t Sell Patents to Trolls
Favorite When universities invent, those inventions should benefit everyone. Unfortunately, they sometimes end up in the hands of patent trolls—companies that serve no purpose but to amass patents and demand money from others. When a university sells patents to trolls, it undermines the university’s purpose as a driver of innovation. Those patents become landmines that…