Deeplinks Blog posts about Patents
When Universities Sell Patents to Trolls, Publicly Funded Research Is Compromised
There’s been a lot of talk lately about the state of publicly funded research. Many, including EFF, have long called on Congress to pass a law requiring that publicly funded research be made available to the public.
How do you store your paper files? Perhaps you leave them scattered on your desk or piled on the floor. If you’re more organized, you might keep them in a cabinet. This month’s stupid patent, US Patent No. 6,690,400 (the ’400 patent), claims the idea of using “virtual cabinets” to graphically represent data storage and organization. While this is bad, the worse news is that the patent’s owner is suing just about anyone who runs a website.
This week marks the second anniversary of the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Alice v. CLS Bank. In Alice, the court ruled that an abstract idea does not become eligible for a patent simply by being implemented on a generic computer. When the case was decided, we wrote that it would be a few years until we knew its true impact. Two years in, we can say that while Alice has not solved all problems with software patents, it has given productive companies a valuable tool for fighting back against patent trolls. And while it has been bad for the trolls, there’s little reason to think the Alice decision harmed real software companies.
This month features not only a stupid patent, but also a stupid trademark to go along with it.
My Health, Inc. is the owner of U.S. Patent No. 6,612,985, which is entitled “Method and system for monitoring and treating a patient.” My Health also holds a trademark in the term “My Health.” My Health claims that it is “the only person or entity entitled to use... ‘My Health’ in commerce.”
Jason Cugle, if all goes well, will soon be able to continue to operate his mail-order business without fear of a spurious patent lawsuit. With any luck, so will thousands of other small businesses that are often targeted by one of the worst patent trolls around.
Jason runs Triple7Vaping.com, a small Maryland business that sells products online and ships them across the country. Jason doesn’t run a high-tech operation: a customer orders a product, Jason manually composes an email letting that customer know the order had shipped, and packages are then sent out via tracked USPS mail.
Pages
Subscribe to EFF Updates
Deeplinks Archives
Deeplinks Topics
- Fair Use and Intellectual Property: Defending the Balance
- Free Speech
- Innovation
- UK Investigatory Powers Bill
- International
- Know Your Rights
- Privacy
- Trade Agreements and Digital Rights
- 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!
- Development Agenda
- Digital Books
- Digital Radio
- Digital Video
- DMCA
- DMCA Rulemaking
- Do Not Track
- DRM
- E-Voting Rights
- EFF Europe
- Electronic Frontier Alliance
- Encrypting the Web
- Export Controls
- FAQs for Lodsys Targets
- File Sharing
- Fixing Copyright? The 2013-2016 Copyright Review Process
- FTAA
- Genetic Information Privacy
- Hollywood v. DVD
- How Patents Hinder Innovation (Graphic)
- ICANN
- 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
- Offline : Imprisoned Bloggers and Technologists
- 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 Privacy
- Stupid Patent of the Month
- 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
- TPP's Copyright Trap
- Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement
- Travel Screening
- TRIPS
- Trusted Computing
- Video Games
- Wikileaks
- WIPO
- Transparency
- Uncategorized
eff.org/nsa-spying
