Public Patent Foundation

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Public Patent Foundation
PubPat Logo Blue.png
Formation 2003
Type Nonprofit organization
Headquarters Coral Gables, FL, United States
Executive Director
Daniel B. Ravicher
Key people
Website www.pubpat.org

Public Patent Foundation, or PUBPAT, is a non-profit organization that seeks to limit perceived abuse of the United States patent system. It was founded in 2003 by Dan Ravicher. As of 2004, there was growing concern by many technology professionals over the number of patents granted that are either too trivial to deserve protection, or duplicate existing or expired patents. It usually works by petitioning the United States Patent and Trademark Office to review patents that are suspected of being invalid somehow or another, usually by prior art.

Under United States law, a patent is a right granted to the inventor of a (1) process, machine, article of manufacture, or composition of matter, (2) that is new, useful, and non-obvious. A patent is the right to exclude others from using a new technology. Specifically, it is the right to exclude others from making, using, selling, offering for sale, importing, inducing others to infringe, and/or offering a product specially adapted for practice of the patent.

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.

United States Patent and Trademark Office agency in the United States Department of Commerce

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is an agency in the U.S. Department of Commerce that issues patents to inventors and businesses for their inventions, and trademark registration for product and intellectual property identification.

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Richard Axel molecular biologist

Richard Axel is an American molecular biologist and university professor in the Department of Neuroscience at Columbia University and investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. His work on the olfactory system won him and Linda Buck, a former postdoctoral research scientist in his group, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2004.

<i>BRCA1</i> protein-coding gene in the species Homo sapiens

Breast cancer type 1 susceptibility protein is a protein that in humans is encoded by the BRCA1 gene. Orthologs are common in other vertebrate species, whereas invertebrate genomes may encode a more distantly related gene. BRCA1 is a human tumor suppressor gene and is responsible for repairing DNA.

See also

Intellectual property organizations are organizations that are focused on copyrights, trademarks, patents, or other intellectual property law concepts.

Opposition to software patents is widespread in the free software community. In response, various mechanisms have been tried to defuse the perceived problem.


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Instant messaging form of communication over the Internet

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Asure Software

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System administrator person who maintains and operates a computer system and/or network

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An open format is a file format for storing digital data, defined by a published specification usually maintained by a standards organization, and which can be used and implemented by anyone. For example, an open format can be implemented by both proprietary and free and open-source software, using the typical software licenses used by each. In contrast to open formats, closed formats are considered trade secrets. Open formats are also called free file formats if they are not encumbered by any copyrights, patents, trademarks or other restrictions so that anyone may use them at no monetary cost for any desired purpose.

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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.

Daniel Ravicher American lawyer

Daniel "Dan" Ravicher serves as Executive Director of the Public Patent Foundation (PUBPAT).

WildTangent is a Redmond, Washington based game network, privately held in the United States that powers game services for several PC manufacturers including Dell and HP. Collectively, WildTangent’s owned and operated service reaches over 20 million monthly players in the United States and Europe with a catalog of more than 1000 games from nearly 100 developers.

This is a list of legal terms relating to patents. A patent is not a right to practice or use the invention, but a territorial right to exclude others from commercially exploiting the invention, granted to an inventor or his successor in rights in exchange to a public disclosure of the invention.

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to intellectual property:

Proprietary software, also known as "closed-source software", is a non-free computer software for which the software's publisher or another person retains intellectual property rights—usually copyright of the source code, but sometimes patent rights.

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In telecommunications, a proprietary protocol is a communications protocol owned by a single organization or individual.

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The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to patents: