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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.

3 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. 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-