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Reform Could Kill EFF "Patent Busting Project"
netbuzz alerts us to a letter the EFF sent today to Senators Leahy and Specter pointing out a deleterious clause in the current draft of the Patent Reform Act of 2007 — which EFF generally supports. As written, the proposal would kill the EFF's Patent Busting Project. Fine print in the bill would limit the time in which a patent could be challenged, by anyone other than those suffering direct financial harm, to one year after the patent's grant. Since the EFF is non-profit it would have a hard time showing financial harm.
Couldn't ALL consumers demonstrate financial harm? Stupid patents drive up prices, directly affecting ALL of us.
We need line by line, letter by letter editing comments for bills. I want to know which dumbass sneaked this into the Bill.
would FLOSS projects ever be able to show financial harm??
I though EFF represents people, I may be wrong.
Err, what? Of course non-profits can suffer financial harm. Do you think they can't be sued, for example, or stolen from, or anything like that? What can't happen is that their profits are diminished - since they haven't got any -, but they sure can be harmed financially.
Some fucking asshat sneaked this into the reform.
This means you can patent something, sit on it until the complain period elapses out, then start suing and people cant complain that it is prior art.
Simple: The EFF buy one copy of software from someone who has had to pay patent extortion. The price that the EFF paid was presumably higher than it would have been if the software house did not have to pay patent dues ... thus the EFF has suffered financially.
Play these parasites at their own game!
The last thing the world needs is incontestable rights that were wrongly granted in the first place.
I can just hear the bill's defenders saying 'but this limitation would not be incontestability'. But patents are rights that can be asserted against the public generally. So this limitation on who can contest them, would be incontestability by a large section of the persons affected by the rights.
-wb-
If you just wait a year, then sue everyone, no one will be able to challange the patent. You could even say for the first year it is free, so no one can claim financial damage. After that, no one can challange the patent.
The problem is that the standard is not, as the summary claims " anyone... suffering direct financial harm." Instead, the law is about third-party challenges. In other words, the only way after one year to challenge a patent would as a defense once sued over said patent.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
Sneaking in wording like that into a bill is a big problem in Congress. Wouldn't it be great, like the Wikipedia tracing project, if we could find a way to find which congressman inserted what weasel words, when and who their donors are?
So what's holding a company back from getting a patent granted, sitting on it or flying it under the radar for a year?
This sounds like an extra perk requested by large Corp's to ensure that would be trouble makers can only bitch for so long before they are legally cast to the wind. Have we been bought and sold again fellow netizens?
If you just wait a year, then sue everyone, no one will be able to challange the patent. You could even say for the first year it is free, so no one can claim financial damage. After that, no one can challange the patent.
I think you're reading it wrong. For the first year, anyone can claim harm. After that, only those financially harmed (ie, sued, or otherwise prevented from competing) could claim harm. So it's bad, just not quite that bad.
Still, how does one prevent the EFF folks from starting a sister corporation who creates a prototype of a potentially infringing device and claiming 'harm' since they can't sell it? They could make a cheap-o prototype that intentionally infringes on each patent they want to kill, then file suit.
Let's make loopholes work for us!
is themselves. They'll end up enslaving themselves. What are these senators thinking? How can this be good for America?
DRM? No thanks, I'll just get it somewhere else...
I suggest that what we really need is a second Patent Office. The first one can go on granting patents as usual. The second one's mission will be to invalidate and throw out as many patents as it can. Patent examiners in the second one will be paid bonuses according to how many patents they manage to invalidate.
I'm kidding... but only partly. The more I think about this, the more I like it.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
We should make the patent office liable for damages done and court costs for the bogus patents they issue. They only started rubber-stamping business methods and software patents when they were required to generate revenue. So stop the revenue stream.
...would definitely be a good idea. Actually, I'd have two new units, plus the original. You'd then have a pro-active team that actively opposes every patent that is submitted, seeking any possible prior art, any possible flaw, and taking in any filed preliminary challenges in the pre-patent cooling-off time. If the patent makes it through that, it then gets the "gentle" treatment from the regular patent folk. The third unit, the overseers, challenge both subordinate units to prove their points and prove their cases. Anything that gets through the system intact should be entitled to be challenged by anyone, but that challenge may be thrown out without hearing if it's a point already answered within the above chain. Existing patents would then be resubmitted but deemed valid until clearly shown otherwise by the first stage. Historic patents, no longer valid but of major public interest, should periodically be thrown through the same test to see if their granting was actually lawful. Less for any purpose of redress and more as an educational experience.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
House
Senate
I have teh dumb. That senate link should point to:
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
what you've said it means. The EFF still makes money. It's just got to do some accounting and spending to make sure that it falls within the IRS' definition of a non-profit.
The problem is EFF isn't in the business of making all the products or offering all the services the patents they're going after cover.
Just because you are a non-profit organization doesn't mean you aren't harmed. Say you had a cash flow of $2,000. that means 2,000 came in and 2,000 went out. If a "bad" patent caused harm then the cash flow would have been $1,500, instead you spent 2,000. You were harmed to the tune of $500. Whether you show a profit, break even or loose money on you balance sheet doesn't affect whether or not the "bad" patent caused you harm it just affects the final numbers. I can see how this would limit the EFF efforts since they only have so much money/time/effort to spend on litigation per year, if there's a "statute of limitations" for contesting a patent then many will get a free ride simply because there is only so much that can be looked at per unit of time. Sounds like a bad clause.
I think we could use Frank Herbert's "Ministry of Sabotage".
A goverment agency who's job is to try and keep other agencies, within the same goverment, from gaining power.
The article summary (surprise) wasn't well written or edited.
The issue that the EFF would have is that since, as a non-profit engaged in advocacy, they're not likely to be directly financially harmed by most patents. It's not like the EFF sells less software or something due to software patents.
paintball
We can just write some software, wave it in the patent holder's face, and wait for the legal threats. "EFF, save me!"
If, after one year, noone has 'come to harm' anyways, it is likely there will be noone to challenge the patent. If this is the case, no responsible company would cause itself to come to harm in order to then challenge the patent.
1 year from time of filing to protest? That's not good. Then most companies will wait 1 year before suing anyone since they'll be generally safer from challenges. There should be no limit on challenges. If a patent is bogus, it should be challengable by anyone at anytime.
Thanks,
Leabre
Obviously a lot... after all, all those missing brains must have gone *somewhere*
Easy. I hereby declare that I will pay the EFF the sum of $0.01 each time the challenge a spurious patent older than one year. If this bill passes, they will suffer financial harm-- and can challenge the patent. (And I save $0.01)
UTF-8: There and Back Again
You need to go even further up the chain and start with the fubar'd methods by which the parties select their nominees.
Well see, my plan fixes that. Instead of having caucasus all the candidates run for president. Before the 12th Amendment was passed that's how presidential elections were held. Of course the political parties didn't want to risk a candidate from one party being elected president and another one from a different party being the VP. John Adams was elected as the USA's second president and was member of the Federalist Party. One of his opponents was Thomas Jefferson, who became the Vice President under Adams. And Jefferson was a member, and the founder, of the Democratic Republican Party. Both of these parties were ideologically opposed to each other, the Federalists wanted a large and powerful federal government whereas TJ's Democratic Republicans wanted a small federal government and the power devolved, focused, locally.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Fine! I'll make my own Patent Office, with blackjack, and hookers!
this proposed bill will make it unbelievably difficult to stop patent trolls...
1. Get stupidly obvious patent
2. Wait 1 year and a day
3. Sue everybody in sight
4. ??????
5. Profit...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
Couldn't EFF still offer legal services to those who are directly financially harmed by bogus patents? I don't this this would doom the patent busting project, just force it to change gears.
Good idea.
The project could actually keep collecting evidence and list it on a public website. Then everybody who is planning to "infringe" one of the bogus patents on the list could challenge the patent, because his business would be harmed financially.
C - the footgun of programming languages
now that the *AA have gotten it down pat that merely sharing is profiting because you expect to be shared back (and butressed by the idea that a lost opportunity is theft of money), all the EFF have to do is say
We should be able to share our code that the patent says it covers but we can't. Because we wanted to share and expected improvements back, this is denying us the money equvalent of the support work that would be done. As per RIAA arguement in Daffy v Duck, Il 5th Cir.. Additionally, we would be able to increase the ammount of code shared and thereby profited from the opportunity such increase in code value were it not for the claims of this patent. The loss of opportunity being a financial harm is well settled in case law by the various P2P claims made by such illustrious corporations as Warner, Sony, BMG and so forth.
Done and dusted