Email updates on news, actions,and events in your area.DEEPLINKS BLOGShare ItBefore COVID-19, people living in rural and isolated areas urgently needed to access health care services remotely; now we all do. Thanks to decades of innovation in computing and telecommunications, more essential health care services are available electronically than ever before. But there’s no guarantee they will always be as accessible and affordable as they are today. Because the Patent Office keeps granting patents on old ways of using networked computers, it keeps gambling with the public’s future access to...…Email updates on news, actions,and events in your area.DEEPLINKS BLOGShare ItBefore COVID-19, people living in rural and isolated areas urgently needed to access health care services remotely; now we all do. Thanks to decades of innovation in computing and telecommunications, more essential health care services are available electronically than ever before. But there’s no guarantee they will always be as accessible and affordable as they are today. Because the Patent Office keeps granting patents on old ways of using networked computers, it keeps gambling with the public’s future access to...WW…

Email updates on news, actions,and events in your area.DEEPLINKS BLOGShare ItDesign is incredibly important to how people use and choose products, but design patents are not. They provide exclusive rights only to ornamental product features, which by definition are not useful or artistic; for those that are, utility patent and copyright protection exist instead. As , we don’t need design patents because they restrict far more creativity, innovation, and economic activity than they promote. Unfortunately, the Patent Office is preparing to grant even more.Design patents provide exclusive...…Email updates on news, actions,and events in your area.DEEPLINKS BLOGShare ItDesign is incredibly important to how people use and choose products, but design patents are not. They provide exclusive rights only to ornamental product features, which by definition are not useful or artistic; for those that are, utility patent and copyright protection exist instead. As , we don’t need design patents because they restrict far more creativity, innovation, and economic activity than they promote. Unfortunately, the Patent Office is preparing to grant even more.Design patents provide exclusive...WW…

Email updates on news, actions,and events in your area.DEEPLINKS BLOGShare ItCopyright law is supposed to promote creativity, not stamp out criticism. Too often, copyright owners forget that – especially when they have a convenient takedown tool like the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).EFF is happy to remind them – as we did this month on behalf of Internet creator Lindsay Ellis. Ellis had posted a video about a copyright dispute between authors in a very particular fandom niche: the Omegaverse realm of wolf-kink erotica. The video tells the story of that dispute in gory and...…Email updates on news, actions,and events in your area.DEEPLINKS BLOGShare ItCopyright law is supposed to promote creativity, not stamp out criticism. Too often, copyright owners forget that – especially when they have a convenient takedown tool like the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).EFF is happy to remind them – as we did this month on behalf of Internet creator Lindsay Ellis. Ellis had posted a video about a copyright dispute between authors in a very particular fandom niche: the Omegaverse realm of wolf-kink erotica. The video tells the story of that dispute in gory and...WW…

Email updates on news, actions,and events in your area.DEEPLINKS BLOGShare It The public’s right of access to court proceedings is well-established as a legal principle, but it needs constant defending. In part, that’s because private parties keep asking publicly-funded courts to resolve their disputes in secret. As and have written before, this problem is especially great in patent cases, where parties on opposite sides of a case often agree with each other to keep as much of the litigation as possible hidden from view. That deprives the public of material it has every right to see...…Email updates on news, actions,and events in your area.DEEPLINKS BLOGShare It The public’s right of access to court proceedings is well-established as a legal principle, but it needs constant defending. In part, that’s because private parties keep asking publicly-funded courts to resolve their disputes in secret. As and have written before, this problem is especially great in patent cases, where parties on opposite sides of a case often agree with each other to keep as much of the litigation as possible hidden from view. That deprives the public of material it has every right to see...WW…

Email updates on news, actions,and events in your area.DEEPLINKS BLOGShare ItWhen individuals and companies are wrongly accused of patent infringement, they should be encouraged to stand up and defend themselves. When they win, the public does too. While the patent owner loses revenue, the rest of society gets greater access to knowledge, product choice, and space for innovation. This is especially true when defendants win by proving the patent asserted against them is invalid. In such cases, the patent gets cancelled, and the risk of wrongful threats against others vanishes.The need to...…Email updates on news, actions,and events in your area.DEEPLINKS BLOGShare ItWhen individuals and companies are wrongly accused of patent infringement, they should be encouraged to stand up and defend themselves. When they win, the public does too. While the patent owner loses revenue, the rest of society gets greater access to knowledge, product choice, and space for innovation. This is especially true when defendants win by proving the patent asserted against them is invalid. In such cases, the patent gets cancelled, and the risk of wrongful threats against others vanishes.The need to...WW…

Email updates on news, actions,and events in your area.DEEPLINKS BLOGShare ItAt a time when government officials are justifiably limiting in-person gatherings to slow the spread of COVID-19, the public should have access to essential government activities. The Supreme Court is no exception, which is why it must finally allow cameras in its courtroom.Responding to the health and safety concerns raised by the spread of COVID-19, the Supreme Court announced on March 12 that it would close its building to the public until further notice. Four days later, the Court postponed its March oral...…Email updates on news, actions,and events in your area.DEEPLINKS BLOGShare ItAt a time when government officials are justifiably limiting in-person gatherings to slow the spread of COVID-19, the public should have access to essential government activities. The Supreme Court is no exception, which is why it must finally allow cameras in its courtroom.Responding to the health and safety concerns raised by the spread of COVID-19, the Supreme Court announced on March 12 that it would close its building to the public until further notice. Four days later, the Court postponed its March oral...WW…

Email updates on news, actions,and events in your area.DEEPLINKS BLOGShare ItIn 2014, the Supreme Court decided the landmark Alice v. CLS Bank case. The Court held generic computers, performing generic computer functions, can’t make something eligible for patent protection. That shouldn’t be controversial, but it took Alice to make this important limitation on patent-eligibility crystal clear.Last year, the Patent Office decided to work around that decision, so that the door to bogus software patents could swing open once again. The office issued new guidance telling its examiners how to...…Email updates on news, actions,and events in your area.DEEPLINKS BLOGShare ItIn 2014, the Supreme Court decided the landmark Alice v. CLS Bank case. The Court held generic computers, performing generic computer functions, can’t make something eligible for patent protection. That shouldn’t be controversial, but it took Alice to make this important limitation on patent-eligibility crystal clear.Last year, the Patent Office decided to work around that decision, so that the door to bogus software patents could swing open once again. The office issued new guidance telling its examiners how to...WW…