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There’s a lot wrong with America’s patent system — it often serves to undercut innovation, limits competition, and rewards trolls. But there’s a relatively easy short-term fix: Cap software patents at five years from issuance, a position adapted from the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s (EFF) Defend Innovation Project. While comprehensive legislation is needed to fix patent law, this first step is critical to reviving and protecting entrepreneurship, R&D, and technological progress in the United States.
Related Updates
A New Hampshire state court has dismissed a defamation suit filed by a patent owner unhappy that it had been called a “patent troll.” The court ruled [
PDF ] that the phrase “patent troll” and other rhetorical characterizations are not the type of factual statements that can be the basis...
The importance of the US Patent Office’s “inter partes review” (IPR) process was highlighted in dramatic fashion yesterday. Patent appeals judges
threw out a patent [PDF] that was used to sue more than 80 companies in the fitness, wearables, and health industries.
US Patent No.
7,454,002 was owned...
Trying to succeed as a startup is hard enough. Getting a frivolous patent infringement demand letter in the mail can make it a whole lot harder. The experience of San Francisco-based Motiv is the latest example of how patent trolls impose painful costs on small startups and stifle innovation.
...
If trolls don’t face consequences for asserting invalid software patents, then they will continue to shake down productive companies. That is why EFF has filed an amicus brief [
PDF ] urging the court to uphold fee awards against patent trolls (and their lawyers) when they assert software patents that are...
Have you ever sent a motivational text to a friend? If you have, perhaps you tailored your message to an activity or location by saying “Good luck in the race!” or “Have fun in New York!” Now, imagine doing this automatically with a
compuuuter . What a great invention. Actually...
Update 02/26/2018: The Patent Trial and Appeal Board has ruled [PDF ] that the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe cannot claim sovereign immunity to avoid an Inter Partes Review. It further held that the proceeding could “continue even without the Tribe’s participation in view of Allergan’s retained ownership interests in the...
In a promising step toward transparency, the
Eastern District of Texas (the court that sees many of the nation’s patent cases) recently
announced an amendment to its Local Rules that would require parties to file redacted versions of documents that contain confidential information. Previously, parties would file whole...
A federal judge has
ruled that EFF need not obey an Australian injunction ordering EFF to take down a “Stupid Patent of the Month” blog post and never speak of the patent owner’s intellectual property again.
It all started when Global Equity Management (SA) Pty Ltd (GEMSA)’s
...
EFF filed this
lawsuit against Global Equity Management (SA) Pty Ltd (GEMSA), an Australian company that sought to use foreign law to
censor us from expressing our opinion about its patent. We
asked the court to rule that any foreign order censoring EFF would be...
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