EFF Busts Bogus Online Testing Patent

Panaqqa writes "It's taken some time, but the EFF's Patent Busting Project is making progress. In the latest news, the USPTO has now officially rejected one of the 10 awful patents targeted, making the world safe again for administering tests over the Internet. This joins the reexamination of a patent on automated remote access of a computer over a network and the revocation of a patent on recording live performances to CD as notable successes for the EFF."

Comments

EFF should win

[log1385]

This is a fight that I think the EFF will win. Too many people and corporations have to much at stake to let patents like these get through. Simple common sense will also side with the EFF. If the EFF fails, it simply bears more witness to the fact that our patent system is broken, perhaps beyond repair.

Re:EFF should win

[kebes]

This is a fantastic win for the EFF, and I hope they continue doing this good work.

However it points to a deeper problem in the patent system. It's bad enough that the current patent office allows awful patents to slip through--but it's worse still that it requires an external non-profit organization to "fight" in order to get ridiculous patents overturned. In principle it should require nothing more than a polite mail to the USPTO, pointing out a weak patent that was granted, and the patent office would do a review and overturn the patent immediately.

Instead, we have to organize ourselves, fund a non-profit, and get them to aggressively fight the issue, submitting detailed accounts of prior art, and hope the patent office responds properly. This also means that we are paying for these ridiculous patents twice: first to run the infrastructure of the patent office, and then again because we have to fund third parties to actually review patents (wasn't that supposed to be the job of the patent office?).

The whole system seems rather inefficient. Again I commend the EFF on its amazing work (and I will continue donating to them), but ultimately it would seem that a reform of the patent office itself is what's really required.

Basic premise in the USA ..

[OzPeter]

It looks like to me that the basic premise for most things in the USA is to do something or grant something and then let the courts work it out after the fact. This has the benefit of getting things done cheaply along with that only the people who are grievously upset will bother to fight things in the courts (which is really those who have money to do so)

To me this is a direct result of a purely capitalistic approach - the worship of the Dollar.

What would be better to do would be to actually examine what is being processed and to grant/deny based on its merits - but that would take way more $dollars

Capitalism is a great way to find the lowest $dollar cost to a process, but the lowest $dollar cost may not be the best overall solution for society.