The EFF Patent Busting Project

Posted by Kenneth Ronkowitz on


As a follow-up to my last posting about the Blackboard patent and lawsuit, I want to let others know about the efforts of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (Lawrence Lessig and crew).

EFF has a Patent Busting Project" website complete with a "10 most-wanted" patents which they define as the "ones that pose the biggest threat to the public domain." EFF's lawyers and technologists track down prior art and petition the Patent and Trademark Office for revocation of these offenders' patents. That's already happened with Test.com who claim a method for administering tests, lessons, & assessments and further claims it should receive licensing fees from companies, universities or individuals that administer tests over the Internet. Educators should also be concerned with Acacia Research whose patent seems to give them a lock on audio and video streaming and has already caused some institutions to pay them fees for streaming content.

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