Defend Innovation

Last updated
Defend Innovation
Mission statement How to Fix Our Broken Patent System
Commercial? No
Founder Electronic Frontier Foundation
Established 19 June 2012 (2012-06-19)
Website defendinnovation.org

Defend Innovation is a patent reform project started by Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) in June 2012. The project initially proposed seven changes to United States's patent system, including shortening the term for software patents, requirement to provide the running software code along with patent application, and avoidance of liability of an infringer who independently arrives at the patented invention. [1] [2]

Patent set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee so that he has a temporary monopoly

A patent is a form of intellectual property. A patent gives its owner the right to exclude others from making, using, selling, and importing an invention for a limited period of time, usually twenty years. The patent rights are granted in exchange for an enabling public disclosure of the invention. In most countries patent rights fall under civil law and the patent holder needs to sue someone infringing the patent in order to enforce his or her rights. In some industries patents are an essential form of competitive advantage; in others they are irrelevant.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is an international non-profit digital rights group based in San Francisco, California. The foundation was formed in July 1990 by John Gilmore, John Perry Barlow and Mitch Kapor to promote Internet civil liberties.

A software patent is a patent on a piece of software, such as a computer program, libraries, user interface, or algorithm.

Contents

Results

Since June 2012, the project collected information about the patent system from lawyers, software engineers, court cases, and other sources. The information collected was combined with EFF's own expertise [3] and compiled in a whitepaper named How to Fix Our Broken Patent System, which details the issues surrounding the patent system and proposes solutions that can be implemented by the Congress, Patent Office, and also the software companies. [4] The whitepaper is available at the Defend Innovation website.

See also

In international law and business, patent trolling or patent hoarding is a categorical or pejorative term applied to a person or company that attempts to enforce patent rights against accused infringers far beyond the patent's actual value or contribution to the prior art, often through hardball legal tactics. Patent trolls often do not manufacture products or supply services based upon the patents in question. However, some entities which do not practice their asserted patent may not be considered "patent trolls" when they license their patented technologies on reasonable terms in advance.

The software patent debate is the argument about the extent to which, as a matter of public policy, it should be possible to patent software and computer-implemented inventions. Policy debate on software patents has been active for years. The opponents to software patents have gained more visibility with fewer resources through the years than their pro-patent opponents. Arguments and critiques have been focused mostly on the economic consequences of software patents.

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References

  1. ↑ "EFF Launches New Patent Reform Project to Defend Innovation". Electronic Frontier Foundation. Retrieved 13 December 2015.
  2. ↑ "Proposals". Defend Innovation. Archived from the original on 22 December 2015. Retrieved 13 December 2015.
  3. ↑ "Patents". Electronic Frontier Foundation. Retrieved 13 December 2015.
  4. ↑ "Defend Innovation". Defend Innovation. Retrieved 13 December 2015.


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