The internet can be a powerful tool for communicating, collaborating, and finding community. But lawsuits and threats from patent trolls have been an obstacle to the dream of a free and open internet. That’s why EFF has been fighting back against them for more than 15 years.
Patent trolls are companies that are focused on suing and threatening over patents, not on offering actual goods or services. Very often, they use software patents to sue over basic business processes, like making picture menus or taking event photographs. It’s all too easy to get patents on things like this because the patent system is just a bad fit for software.
In the first 3 quarters of 2022, 64% of all patent lawsuits were filed by patent trolls—companies whose primary focus is making money from patents, not providing services or goods. In the high-tech space, patent trolls filed 88% of all lawsuits.
Defending Our Progress
Since EFF has started working to improve the patent system, we’ve seen a few big steps forward, like the introduction of inter partes review (IPR), and the 2014 Alice v. CLS Bank Supreme Court ruling.
The Alice precedent, which is more than 8 years old now, has done a good job of knocking out many software patents that never should have been issued in the first place.
EFF’s “Saved by Alice” project has highlighted s
[…]
Content was cut in order to protect the source.Please visit the source for the rest of the article.
Read the original article: