How the STRONGER Patents Act Would Send Innovation Overseas
Senator Chris Coons introduced a bill this week called the STRONGER Patents Act [ PDF ]. The bill contains many terrible ideas. It would gut inter partes review (a valuable tool for challenging bad patents). It would overturn the Supreme Court’s decision in eBay v....
Small Business Fights for its Life, Wins with Alice
Michael Skelps was celebrating on New Year’s Eve with family and friends when he got a strange email from a lawyer. It said that Michael’s company, Capstone Photography, had just been sued for patent infringement. Michael went from celebrating to worrying about whether his small company would survive. Capstone is...
The Patent Troll and the Scavenger Hunt
Ken Cooper runs a small business out of his home. Unfortunately Ken’s business was not so small that it avoided the notice of a patent troll. Ken has been writing code since 1973. His life in programming has ranged from small personal projects to founding a software company that was...
A Startup Runs Into A Patent on Picture Menus
If you’ve ever seen a picture menu, you’ve seen the supposed ‘invention’ claimed by U.S. Patent 6,585,516 . Although it had a complex-sounding title (“Method and system for computerized visual behavior analysis, training, and planning”), the patent simply claimed using picture menus on a computer. Patent troll DietGoal Innovations,...
Saved by Alice: How a Key Supreme Court Decision Protects Businesses from Bad Patents
In 2014’s Alice v. CLS Bank , the Supreme Court ruled that an abstract idea does not become eligible for a patent simply by being implemented on a generic computer. Since then, Alice has provided a lifeline for real businesses threatened or sued with bogus patents. This...
An Attack on Net Neutrality Is an Attack on Free Speech
Several US senators spoke out this week on the importance of net neutrality to innovation and free speech. They are right. The Internet has become our public square, our newspaper, our megaphone. The Federal Communications Commission is trying to turn it in something more akin to commercial...
EFF to the SEC: Get a Warrant
If the federal government wants to compel an online service provider, like Yahoo or Google, to turn over your email, they need a warrant. That's the industry-accepted best practice, implemented by nearly every major service provider . More importantly, it's what the Fourth Amendment requires. The Securities and Exchange...
Copyright Law Shouldn’t Pick Winners
Mandatory Filtering Proposals Curb Competition When looking at a proposed policy regulating Internet businesses, here’s a good question to ask yourself: would this bar new companies from competing with the current big players? Google will probably be fine, but what about the next Google? In the past few years,...
EFF Senior Staff Attorney Jennifer Lynch Speaking at Nuit du Hack - Paris
Jennifer Lynch will be speaking at Nuit du Hack in Paris on June 24, 2017 about the use of AI, machine learning and predictive analytics to fight crime and find terrorists. The talk is at 5:15PM at the Disneyland Paris Hotel New York Conference Centre. Read more...
Help EFF Track the Progress of AI and Machine Learning
The field of machine learning and artificial intelligence is making rapid progress. Many people are starting to ask what a world with intelligent computers will look like. But what is the ratio of hype to real progress? What kinds of problems have been well solved by current machine...
Be Prepared: Summer Security Camp
EFF has just launched the Summer Security Camp , a two-week membership drive that challenges people everywhere to gather ‘round the online rights movement and prepare for the privacy and free speech challenges in their paths. Through the 4th of July, anyone can join EFF or renew...
Supreme Court Rejects Expansion of Government-Speech Doctrine In Tam Case
The Supreme Court’s unanimous decision in Matal v. Tam striking down the trademark non-disparagement requirement as unconstitutional is a big victory for the First Amendment. First, the Court strongly pushed back against the expansion of the government-speech doctrine, perhaps the biggest current threat to free speech...
Supreme Court Strikes Down Social Media Ban for Sex Offenders
The U.S. Supreme Court, in Packingham v. South Carolina , unanimously struck down a state law that banned registered sex offenders (RSOs) from using all Internet social media, holding that the law violated the First Amendment. EFF and our allies Public Knowledge and the Center for...
Restoring Privacy Protections for Californians
Californians now have a chance to reclaim crucial online privacy protections. Earlier this year, Congress narrowly voted to repeal federal privacy rules that kept your ISP from selling information about who you are and what you do online without your permission. Today, California legislators are introducing new state legislation—the California...
As a Provider Fought a Secret Surveillance Order, Court Denied It Access to Relevant Law
The U.S. government’s foreign surveillance law is so secretive that not even a service provider challenging an order issued by a secret court got to access it. That Kafkaesque episode —denying a party access to the law being used against it—was made public this week in a...
