Deeplinks Blog posts about Innovation
Video is an enormous part of the Internet today. At least two thirds of all Internet traffic is streaming video. YouTube is the third most-visited website in the US and the world, and its users add a mind-boggling 300 hours of new content every minute—dwarfing the video produced for broadcast or cable television. And unlike television, online video came into being without government oversight, all due to one important neutral platform for innovation—the Internet.
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.
Fighting against the sanctions regime for the right to information and innovation can sometimes feel like a cat and mouse game, but today, citizens of Sudan are like the cats that got the cream. After years of campaigning from Sudanese and international activists alike, a success: The Office of Foreign Assets Controls (OFAC) at the US Department of Treasury has issued a general license for the export of hardware and software “incident to personal communications” to Sudan.
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