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Reform Could Kill EFF "Patent Busting Project"

Posted by kdawson on from the shooting-the-messenger dept.

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.

5 of 110 comments (clear)

  1. Who writes this stuff? by Bryansix · · Score: 5, Insightful

    We need line by line, letter by letter editing comments for bills. I want to know which dumbass sneaked this into the Bill.

    1. Re:Who writes this stuff? by arb+phd+slp · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Once we add CVS and source control the next thing we need is a compiler that actually turns the bill into a final form so that the "not" and "amended to add..." gets added into the sentences so we can see them in context instead of hundreds of pages away.

      The reason no one reads the PATRIOT act is because it's almost all partial-sentence amendments to existing laws that are you can't see in context without access to a law library. Compile the source code of the nation so we can read it!

      --
      There's a perfect xkcd for my sig but I'm too lazy to look it up. sudo someone go find it.
  2. How is financial harm defined ? by Alain+Williams · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    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!

  3. patent incontestability is so bad by waterbear · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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-

  4. Re:Second Patent Office by John+Whitley · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Heh, I've been making a similar quip/thought-experiment for a long time about having a "de-legislature", the only function of which is to remove law from the books.

    But the real problem with both of these ideas is that the existing organizations (legislatures, the USPTO, etc.) really just need to operate for the good of individual citizens, without undue influence by the desires of powerful individuals, organizations, or corporations.

    Taking my de-legislature case as an example, it'd be just as bad/good as the original depending on the level/lack of influence by external power influences. A corrupt de-legislature removing laws inconvenient to the powerful would be a pretty awful thing. The same problem applies to a corrupt "office of patent revocation"; it'd just make matters even worse than they already are.