There is a lot in our current patent system that is in need of reform. The Patent Office is too lax in granting patents. Federal Circuit case law has consistently favored patentees. Another part of this problem is the forum shopping by patentees that leads to a disproportionate number of cases being filed in the Eastern District of Texas. Back in 2011, This American Life did a one-hour feature called “When Patents Attack!” The story included a tour of ghostly offices in Marshall, Texas, where shell companies have fake headquarters with no real employees. For many people, it was their…
Author: EFFSource
Wikipedia readers and editors can now enjoy a higher level of long-term privacy, thanks to the Wikimedia Foundation’s rollout last week of forward secrecy on its encrypted connections. Forward secrecy is an important Web privacy protection; we’ve been tracking its implementation across many popular sites with our Encrypt the Web Report. And though it may sound like an obscure technical switch, the impact is dramatic: forward secrecy ensures that every new connection uses unique and ephemeral key information, so traffic intercepted once can’t later be decrypted if the private key gets compromised. That kind of compromise can happen at the…
Today, EFF and its partners in the global Our Fair Deal coalition join together with an even more diverse international network of creators, innovators, start-ups, educators, libraries, archives and users to release two new open letters to negotiators of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). The TPP, although characterized as a free trade agreement, is actually far broader in its intended scope. Amongst many changes to which it could require the twelve negotiating countries to agree are a slate of increased rights and privileges for copyright rights holders. With no official means of participating in the negotiations, the global community of users…
The Intercept published an article last night describing secret foreign intelligence surveillance targeting American citizens. One of those citizens, Nihad Awad, is the executive director and founder of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s leading Muslim advocacy and civil rights organizations and a long-time client of EFF. In response, EFF Staff Attorney Mark Rumold stated: EFF unambiguously condemns government surveillance of people based on the exercise of their First Amendment rights. The government’s surveillance of prominent Muslim activists based on constitutionally protected activity fails the test of a democratic society that values freedom of expression, religious freedom, and…
Google’s handling of a recent decision by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) that allows for Europeans to request that public information about them be deleted from search engine listings is causing frustration amongst privacy advocates. Google—which openly opposed interpreting Europe’s data protection laws as including the removal of publicly available information—is being accused by some of intentionally spinning the ECJ’s ruling to appear ‘unworkable’, while others—such as journalist Robert Peston—have expressed dissatisfaction with the ECJ ruling itself. The issue with the ECJ judgement isn’t European privacy law, or the response by Google. The real problem is the impossibility of…
Recent debate about network neutrality has largely focused on how to make sure broadband providers don’t manipulate their customers’ Internet connections (or as John Oliver put it, how to prevent “cable company f*ckery”). But in today’s world of smartphones and tablets people are spending less of their time on the Internet typing at a computer and more of it swiping on a smartphone. This is why it’s critically important for net neutrality principles to apply to mobile broadband too. The good news is that there is greater competition in the mobile broadband space than the wired broadband market. Unsatisfied customers…
EFF is in Ottawa this week for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations, to influence the course of discussions over regressive digital policy provisions in this trade agreement that could lead to an increasingly restrictive Internet. But this round is different from the others—the secrecy around the talks is wholly unprecedented. The Canadian trade ministry, who is hosting this round of talks, has likely heightened the confidentiality due to the mass public opposition that is growing against this undemocratic, corporate-driven trade deal. The trade offices from the 12 countries negotiating this deal no longer pre-announce details about the time and location…
Philip Johnson is Chief Intellectual Property Counsel of Johnson & Johnson, one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world. He is also a representative member of the Coalition for 21st Century Patent Reform, the leading trade group opposing patent reform this past year. And now he’s rumored to be next in line to be the director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office. What? That’s exactly what we’re asking ourselves. Why would an administration that has ostensibly been so pro-reform over the last year nominate such an entrenched insider? (Though perhaps this isn’t so shocking a question, as those of…
In early March, Yangon—the former capital of Myanmar (Burma)—played host to a conference held by the East-West Center, called “Challenges of a Free Press.” The event (which I attended) featured speakers from around the world, but was more notable for its local speakers, including Aung San Suu Kyi and Nay Phone Latt, a blogger who spent four years as a political prisoner before being released under a widespread presidential amnesty in 2012. In a country where the Internet was heavily censored for many years, online freedom was discussed with surprising openness, although concerns about hate speech on platforms like Facebook…
Learning about Linux is not a crime—but don’t tell the NSA that. A story published in German on Tagesschau, and followed up by an article in English on DasErste.de today, has revealed that the NSA is scrutinizing people who visit websites such as the Tor Project’s home page and even Linux Journal. This is disturbing in a number of ways, but the bottom line is this: the procedures outlined in the articles show the NSA is adding “fingerprints”—like a scarlet letter for the information age—to activities that go hand in hand with First Amendment protected activities and freedom of expression…