The Patent Busting Project is an Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) initiative challenging patents that the organization claims are illegitimate and suppress innovation or limit online expression. The initiative launched on April 19, 2004 and involves two phases: documenting the damage caused by these patents, and submitting challenges to the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).
The EFF's basic assumption is that many such patents are invalid due to prior art which has historically been difficult to document in software and internet fields. (Many patent owners file patents to cover seemingly trivial concepts without any intention of enforcing the patents, but rather to use as part of a larger patent portfolio in their own defense against potential future patent lawsuits.)
Read more about Patent Busting Project: Status, Ten Most-wanted Patents
Famous quotes containing the words patent and/or project:
“This is the patent age of new inventions
For killing bodies, and for saving souls,
All propagated with the best intentions.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)
“I wish to come to know you get to know you all
Let your belief in me and me in you stand tall
Just like a project of which no one tells
Or do ya still think that I’m somebody else?”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)