Deeplinks Blog posts about Patent Trolls
The worst patent trolls bring weak cases and use the cost of defending a lawsuit as leverage to force settlements. A company called Joao Bock Transaction Systems LLC (“JBTS”) has elevated this business model to an art form. The company is associated with patent attorney and prolific “inventor” Raymond Joao. Apparently not content with drafting patents on behalf of others, Joao began to file his own patents. His companies have since launched dozens of lawsuits against technology ranging from streaming video to financial transactions. Of course, if you talk to the people who actually pioneered real-world technology, they’ve never heard of Joao or his companies. From all indications, Joao is solely in business of filing paper patents and forming companies to sue.
At a congressional hearing today, EFF Staff Attorney Vera Ranieri gave formal testimony about patent demand letters and the harm these letters cause to legitimate businesses. Ranieri outlined the discouraging process that allows demand letters to thrive: the Patent Office issues vague and overbroad patents; patent trolls acquire these bad patents and send unfair and deceptive demand letters; and legitimate businesses, without the resources to fight back, end up paying unjustifiable licensing fees. It’s long past time to reform this severely broken system, and we’re pleased that lawmakers seemed ready to tackle this complex problem.
Patent trolls are still at it. A new report from Unified Patents, found that 449 patent cases were filed in district court in January 2015—a 36% increase over January 2014. The growth was fueled largely by patent trolls, who filed more than half of the month’s cases. This marks the second month in a row where we have seen an increase in patent litigation from the same period a year ago.
This is the year for patent reform.
Today Rep. Bob Goodlatte, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, reintroduced the Innovation Act—the strongest bill targeting patent trolls we've seen [PDF]. The language mirrors the legislation that the House overwhelmingly passed and the White House supported in late 2013.
Unfortunately, 2014 began with the Senate's failure to pass strong patent reform. Even more unfortunately, the year ended with numbers showing that patent trolling is still a rampant problem.
Sports. It’s what’s on EFF’s patent team’s mind. No, not because this Sunday is the Super Bowl. No, not even because we filed an amicus brief today in a football-related right of publicity case.
It’s because of U.S. Patent 8,529,350—January’s Stupid Patent of the Month.
Pages
Subscribe to EFF Updates
Deeplinks Archives
Deeplinks Topics
- Fair Use and Intellectual Property: Defending the Balance
- Free Speech
- Innovation
- International
- Know Your Rights
- Privacy
- Trade Agreements
- Security
- State-Sponsored Malware
- Abortion Reporting
- Analog Hole
- Anonymity
- Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement
- Biometrics
- Bloggers' Rights
- Broadcast Flag
- Broadcasting Treaty
- CALEA
- Cell Tracking
- Coders' Rights Project
- Computer Fraud And Abuse Act Reform
- Content Blocking
- Copyright Trolls
- Council of Europe
- Cyber Security Legislation
- CyberSLAPP
- Defend Your Right to Repair!
- Defending Digital Voices
- Development Agenda
- Digital Books
- Digital Radio
- Digital Video
- DMCA
- DMCA Rulemaking
- Do Not Track
- DRM
- E-Voting Rights
- EFF Europe
- Encrypting the Web
- Export Controls
- FAQs for Lodsys Targets
- File Sharing
- Fixing Copyright? The 2013-2014 Copyright Review Process
- FTAA
- Genetic Information Privacy
- Hollywood v. DVD
- How Patents Hinder Innovation (Graphic)
- International Privacy Standards
- Internet Governance Forum
- Law Enforcement Access
- Legislative Solutions for Patent Reform
- Locational Privacy
- Mandatory Data Retention
- Mandatory National IDs and Biometric Databases
- Mass Surveillance Technologies
- Medical Privacy
- National Security and Medical Information
- National Security Letters
- Net Neutrality
- No Downtime for Free Speech
- NSA Spying
- OECD
- Online Behavioral Tracking
- Open Access
- Open Wireless
- Patent Busting Project
- Patent Trolls
- Patents
- PATRIOT Act
- Pen Trap
- Policy Analysis
- Printers
- Public Health Reporting and Hospital Discharge Data
- Reading Accessibility
- Real ID
- RFID
- Search Engines
- Search Incident to Arrest
- Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act
- Social Networks
- SOPA/PIPA: Internet Blacklist Legislation
- Student and Community Organizing
- Surveillance and Human Rights
- Surveillance Drones
- Terms Of (Ab)Use
- Test Your ISP
- The "Six Strikes" Copyright Surveillance Machine
- The Global Network Initiative
- The Law and Medical Privacy
- Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement
- Travel Screening
- TRIPS
- Trusted Computing
- Video Games
- Wikileaks
- WIPO
- Transparency
- Uncategorized
eff.org/nsa-spying
