News
- 2010-12-10: Patent troll Intellectual Ventures sues the security vendors Check Point Software Technologies, McAfee, Symantec and Trend Micro for software patent infringment. [More]
- 2010-11-29: US Supreme Court agrees to hear Microsoft's appeal in I4I vs Microsoft, reagrding standard of evidence for invalidating patents. [EFF]
-
2010-09-21:
LPF founder, Richard Stallman, with a placard reading, "Don't get
caught in software patent thickets", said during a European Patent
Office presentation in Brisbane, AU:
"We're here at the World Computer Congress and what I've discovered is that the European Patent Office is here to campaign in favour of software patents in Australia. You can be sure that if Australia allows software patents, almost all the patents will belong to foreigners and will give them the opportunity to sue Australians. There's no problem that requires a solution with anything like software patents. Without software patents ... neither of us would get sued by the various patent troll companies whose sole business is collecting patents so that they could go threaten people." [iTnews]
- 2010-08-27: Interval Licensing (i.e., Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft) sues AOL, Apple, eBay, Facebook, Google, Netflix, Office Depot, OfficeMax, Staples, Yahoo! and YouTube for patent infringement. [More...]
- 2010-08-25: Help End Software Patents reply to USPTO's request for comment on new guidelines for patent examiners following the Bilski "decision". [ESP]
- 2010-08-13: Oracle sues Google: Oracle filed a patent and copyright infringement lawsuit against Google over Android. [Latest...]
- 2010-06-28: Bilski v. Kappos decided by the US Supreme Court, narrowly ruling to affirm the Federal Circuit in invalidating the Bilski patent, while cautioning that courts "should not read into the patent laws limitations and conditions which the legislature has not expressed." [Full decision] LPF analysis to follow...
- 2010-05-15: Election results from Annual Meeting. [More...]
- 2010-04-18: Patent Absurdity is a half-hour film, using the Bilski case as a backdrop to explain the problems caused by software patents and how software became patentable in the USA. http://patentabsurdity.com/
- 2010-02-26: Notice of LPF Annual Meeting and Election [More...]
- 2009-11-20: Help EFF bust a US patent on podcasting (7,568,213) granted to Volomedia: [EFF Patent Busting Project]
- 2009-11-19: Microsoft attempts to patent Sparklines [Tufte]
- NYT editorials on Bilski and patents: [NYT: 2009-11-07] and [NYT: 2009-11-17]
- 2009-11-09: Oral arguments in Bilski v. Kappos were held today at the US Supreme Court. Summary: [Groklaw]
- 2009-11-05: The Internet chapter of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), drafted in secret by the Obama administration, has apparently been leaked. It includes onerous provisions for globalizing "digital rights management", "technology protection measures", third-party liability and safe harbors for ISPs. [Slashdot] [EFF] [Summary of EU reaction]
- 2009-11-01: To encourage additional members, the LPF Board has extended the $5 membership period until the next Annual Meeting, planned for January or February 2010. [Join LPF]
- 2009-10-12: Two patent infringement lawsuits against Facebook. [More...]
- 2009-10-06: Eolas is back! [More...]
- 2009-10-03: Free Software Foundation, Software Freedom Law Center and Red Hat file amicus briefs in Bilski v. Kappos. [More...]
-
2009-09-15:
LPF President Dean Anderson has sent a notice to former members
announcing the return of the LPF.
Read the
[Letter to Former Members].
[How to Join the LPF] - 2009-08-28: What if there were "literary patents" on plot devices, narrative forms, interview techniques or forms of argumentation? Timothy B. Lee makes the case against them, and the analogy with software patents in "The Case against Literary (and Software) Patents". [techknowledge]
-
2009-08-10:
Judge Leonard Davis, US District Court for the Eastern District in
Texas, orders permanent injunction preventing Microsoft from selling
Microsoft Word in the US. Word infringes i4i's 1998 XML US patent
5,787,449.
[Washington Post]
Update: US Court of Appeals judge grants motion for expedited appeal to start 23 September 2009. [Seattle Post-Intelligencer] HP and Dell have asked the court to allow amicus briefs on Microsoft's behalf. [Groklaw]
- 2009-08-07: Ciarán O'Riordan, executive director of FSF's End Software Patents campaign, is asking for help to make a list of all the arguments against software patents. (Read the ESP Action Alert) You can help at: http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Arguments.
- 2009-08-04: USPTO grants Microsoft patent on "Word-processing document stored in a single XML file that may be manipulated by applications that understand XML": 7,571,169
- 2009-04-07: Apple patent claim covering automatic software updates threatens W3C Widget Specification (w3.org): The Widgets Updates Patent Advisory Group has been set up "to study issues and propose solutions related to a patent disclosure from Apple, Inc., concerning the Widgets 1.0: Updates Working Draft."
- 2009-02-25:
Microsoft's TomTom suit includes Linux claims
(Ina Fried at cnet.com):
REDMOND, Wash. -- Although Microsoft is not highlighting the issue, the patent infringement lawsuits it filed on Wednesday against TomTom include claims related to that company's use of the Linux kernel.
While the software maker has asserted for years that Linux infringes on its patents, this appears to be the first time Microsoft has made the claim in court.Update: In March 2009, after TomTom counter-sued, TomTom and Microsoft settled their patent dispute, cross-licensing several patents without a test of the claims in court.
- 2009-02-09:
Send comments opposing TLS-authz standard by February
11 (fsf.org): Last January, the Free
Software Foundation issued an alert to efforts at the
Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) to sneak a
patent-encumbered standard for "TLS authorization" through
a back-door approval process that was referenced as
"experimental" or "informational". The many comments sent
to IETF at that time alerted committee members to this
attempt and successfully prevented the standard gaining
approval.
Unfortunately, attempts to push through this standard have been renewed and become more of a threat. The proposal now at the IETF has a changed status from "experimental" to "proposed standard". The FSF is again issuing an alert and request for comments to be sent urgently and prior to the February 11 deadline to ietf@ietf.org. Please include us in your message by a CC to campaigns@fsf.org. - 2009-01-27: Ctrl-Z: a return to the Supreme Court's software patent ban? (arstechnica.com): "With the USPTO and courts cracking down on software patents, Ars looks closely at the Supreme Court's software patent decisions. Yes, the Supremes really did say that algorithms can't be patented. In spite of the fact that their rulings have been functionally ignored for almost 20 years, the tide may be about to turn."