Patent Busters Wanted
p2pnet.net News:- "Start forming your patent-busting posses!" – says the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation).
"After sifting through dozens of software and Internet-related patents submitted to its patent busting contest, EFF targeted ten whose crimes have made them enemies of the public domain. All the most-wanted patents are dangerously overbroad; many pose a threat to freedom of expression online. And every single one of the targeted patents is held by an entity that has threatened or brought lawsuits against small businesses, individuals, or nonprofits."
Target Number One is Acacia, "a company that has litigated relentlessly against small businesses to enforce patents that it claims cover a broad array of technologies used to send and receive streaming media online".
Other offenders include ClearChannel, "which has been threatening artists and small CD companies that record live concerts and burn them to CDs for fans at the end of a show".
Now EFF’s team of lawyers, technologists and experts will collect prior art, hard evidence that a patent is ‘obvious’ because it’s based on a common idea or because the claimed ‘invention’ in fact existed before the patent was filed.
"Once the team has gathered enough prior art on a given patent, EFF will submit a petition to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in a legal process known as ‘reexamination’," it says, adding:
"If the USPTO finds the prior art compelling, it will formally revoke the patent and release the idea back into the public domain, where it belongs."
