From: Randy Burge <burge@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: April 20, 2004 7:49:30 AM PDT
To: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne@xxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Wired News: EFF to Fight Dubious Patents
EFF to Fight Dubious Patents By Amit Asaravala
Story location: http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,63122,00.html
02:10 PM Apr. 19, 2004 PT
The Electronic Frontier Foundation launched a campaign on Monday to overturn
several patents that it says are having a "chilling effect" on public and
consumer interest.
In a white paper posted to its website, the civil liberties group targeted
10 patents in particular, including one awarded to Amazon.com for one-click
shopping and another awarded to California lawyer Lawrence Lockwood for
online credit card payments. The two patents are frequently cited by critics
of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office as examples of how patents can do
more harm than good for the software industry.
Wendy Seltzer, an attorney for the EFF, said in an interview Monday that the
goal of the new campaign is to prevent questionable patents like these from
being used against individuals and small businesses.
"Traditionally, corporations have used patents to protect their work, but
we've been seeing patents more and more frequently asserted against
nonprofits and individuals and other nontraditional targets for patent
enforcement," said Seltzer.
"In fighting these patents, our first goal is to help clear out specific
instances of patents that are clogging the works and then point the way to
change the law to prevent future violations," she added.
The EFF will begin its campaign by compiling prior art, or evidence, that it
hopes will help prove that each of the targeted patents was wrongly awarded..
The organization will also collect data about any negative effects that the
patents may have had on individuals and small businesses. The information
will then be presented to the patent office in requests to re-examine the
patents.
<snip>
<http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,63122,00.html>