EFF needs your help to stop patent trolls

Thu Oct 24 22:27:21 UTC 2013

Hi network operators,

Apologies for a non-technical post, but I believe this is an issue of
relevance to the NANOG community.  EFF is collecting signatures from
prominent engineers and technologists for a letter to the US Congress
calling for reform of the software patent system to protect inventors
and inventive companies against patent trolls, who use patents for
extortionate purposes without ever shipping any products.  We're doing
this now because there is a window of political opportunity to actually
get this problem fixed in the next few months.

Draft text of the letter is below.  If you broadly agree and would like
to sign on, please send me a private reply with:

- Your name;

- A 1-3 line bio that summarizes your main career achievements, which
  might be a current or past affiliation, RFCs you wrote, networks you
  built, companies you founded, etc;

- Whether you hold US patents; if so, how many you hold, and (if you
  know them) the patent numbers

=============================================================

Dear Senators and Congressmen,

We, the undersigned, are a group of inventors, technologists and
entrepreneurs. Many of us have founded technology businesses; we have
invented many of the protocols, systems and devices that make the
Internet work, and we are collectively listed as the inventors on [n
thousand] patents.

We write to you today about the U.S. patent system. That system is
broken. Based on our experiences building and deploying new digital
technologies, we believe that software patents are doing more
harm than good. Perhaps it is time to reexamine the idea, dating from
the 1980s, that government-issued monopolies on algorithms, protocols
and data structures are the best way to promote the advancement of
computer science.

But that will be a hard task, and one we don't expect to happen quickly.
Unfortunately, aspects of the problem have become so acute they must be
addressed immediately.

Broad, vague patents covering software-type inventions--some of which we
ourselves are listed as inventors on--are a malfunctioning component of
America's inventive machinery. This is particularly the case when those
patents end up in the hands of non-practicing patent trolls.

These non-practicing entities do not make or sell anything. Their
exploitation of patents as a tool for extortion is undermining America’s
technological progress; patent trolls are collecting taxes on innovation
by extracting billions of dollars in dubious licensing fees, and wasting
the time and management resources of creative businesses. Many of us
would have achieved much less in our careers if the trolling problem had
been as dire in past decades as it is now.

Some legislative proposals under current consideration would fix the
trolling problem. These include:

- Requiring that patent lawsuits actually explain which patents are
  infringed by which aspects of a defendant's technology, and how;

- Making clear who really owns the patent at issue;

- Allowing courts to shift fees to winning parties, making it rational for
  those threatened with an egregious patent suit to actually fight against
  the threat rather than paying what amounts to protection money;               

- Ensuring that those who purchase common, off-the-shelf technologies are
  shielded if they are sued for using them; and

- Increasing opportunities for streamlined patent review at the patent
  office.

While subduing the trolling threat, these proposed changes will not fix
the software patent problem. Congress should consider ways to stop
software patents from interfering with open standards and open source
software; from being claimed on problems, rather than solutions; and
from being drafted so obscurely that they teach us nothing and cannot be
searched. Congress needs to examine the very question of whether their
net impact is positive. 

But for now, we urge you to implement simple and urgently necessary
reforms. We believe in the promise of technology and the power of
creation to increase access to information, to create jobs, and to make
the world a better place. Please do not let patent trolls continue to
frustrate that purpose.

-- 
Peter Eckersley                            pde at eff.org
Technology Projects Director      Tel  +1 415 436 9333 x131
Electronic Frontier Foundation    Fax  +1 415 436 9993