Favorite A functioning patent system depends on one basic principle: bad patents must be challengeable. In 2025, that principle was repeatedly tested—by Congress, by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), and by a small number of large patent owners determined to weaken public challenges. Two damaging bills, PERA and PREVAIL, were reintroduced in Congress.…
All posts tagged Patents
Thousands Tell the Patent Office: Don’t Hide Bad Patents From Review
Favorite A massive wave of public comments just told the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO): don’t shut the public out of patent review. EFF submitted its own formal comment opposing the USPTO’s proposed rules, and more than 4,000 supporters added their voices—an extraordinary response for a technical, fast-moving rulemaking. We comprised more than one-third…
Patents and Open Source: Understanding the Risks and Available Solutions
Favorite Why Patents Licenses Matter: The Benefits of Explicitness Although most people think of Open Source licenses as primarily creatures of copyright law, patent considerations also come into play any time one is choosing to license software (or any other technology or content) under an Open Source license. One of the first articulations of the…
EFF Tells Patent Office: Don’t Cut the Public Out of Patent Review
Favorite EFF has submitted its formal comment to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) opposing a set of proposed rules that would sharply restrict the public’s ability to challenge wrongly granted patents. These rules would make inter partes review (IPR)—the main tool Congress created to fix improperly granted patents—unavailable in most of the situations…
The Patent Office Is About To Make Bad Patents Untouchable
Favorite The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has proposed new rules that would effectively end the public’s ability to challenge improperly granted patents at their source—the Patent Office itself. If these rules take effect, they will hand patent trolls exactly what they’ve been chasing for years: a way to keep bad patents alive and…
PERA Remains a Serious Threat to Efforts Against Bad Patents
Favorite As all things old are new again, a bill that would make obtaining bad patents easier and harder to challenge is being considered in the Senate Judiciary Committee. The Patent Eligibility Restoration Act (PERA) would reverse over a decade of progress in fighting patent trolls and making the patent system more balanced. PERA would…
New USPTO Memo Makes Fighting Patent Trolls Even Harder
Favorite The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) just made a move that will protect bad patents at the expense of everyone else. In a memo released February 28, the USPTO further restricted access to inter partes review, or IPR—the process Congress created to let the public challenge invalid patents without having to wage million-dollar…
Fighting For Progress On Patents: 2024 in Review
Favorite The rights we have in the offline world–to speak freely, create culture, play games, build new things and do business–must be available to us online, as well. This core belief drives EFF’s work to fight the misuse of the patent system. Despite significant progress we’ve made over the last decade, patents, and in particular…
Oppose The Patent-Troll-Friendly PREVAIL Act
Favorite Good news: the Senate Judiciary Committee has dropped one of the two terrible patent bills it was considering, the patent-troll-enabling Patent Eligibility Restoration Act (PERA). Bad news: the committee is still pushing the PREVAIL Act, a bill that would hamstring the U.S.’s most effective system for invalidating bad patents. PREVAIL is a windfall for…
Tell Congress To Stop These Last-Minute Bills That Help Patent Trolls
Favorite Update 11/14/2024: The PERA and PREVAIL patent bills were pulled at the last minute today, without getting a committee vote. Senators are right to have concerns with these deeply flawed bills. We hope to engage with the next Congress on real patent fixes—changes that will create a more fair system for small companies and everyday users…