Anonymous writes "The Patent Busting Project
Note: The EFF is starting its The Patent Busting Project, whose stated goal is to prevent the offensive use of illegitimately granted patents.
Every year numerous illegitimate patent applications make their way through the United States patent examination process without adequate review. The problem is particularly acute in the software and Internet fields where the history of prior inventions (often called "prior art") is widely distributed and poorly documented. . . .
Illegitimate patents can . . . threaten free expression. . . . [B]ecause patents can be anywhere and everywhere in these technologies, the average user has no way of knowing whether his or her tools are subject to legal threats. Patent owners who claim control over these means of community discourse can threaten anyone who uses them, even for personal non-commercial purposes. We lose much if we allow overreaching patent claims to reduce the tremendous benefits that software and technology bring to freedom of expression. . . .
Once it has identified some of the worst offenders, EFF will begin filing challenges to each in the form of a "re-examination request" to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. These requests create a forum to affirmatively invalidate patents rather than forcing technology users to await the threat of suit. Under this procedure, EFF can choose particularly egregious patents, submit the prior art it has collected, and argue that the patent should be revoked. EFF will collaborate with members of the software and Internet communities as well as legal clinics and pro bono cooperating attorneys to help in these efforts.
For those more in the know: Have reexamination requests been a popular tool for private corporations to challenge patents obtained by their competitors? (They should be popular: it doesn't seem too expensive to make such a request.) And if so, how successful have such requests been?
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