1. Encourage Organized Efforts to Have a More Thorough Review of Patent Applications

* Increase third party efforts to improve prior art searches and to facilitate a stronger understanding of the world of prior art.

2. Support Organized Efforts After Patents Have Been Issued

* Reexaminations should be limitless in time and with no financial harm limitations (in many countries, public interest organizations like EFF are only allowed to challenge issued patents for a short period of time after they have issued, even though often a patent’s threat to innovations may not be immediately obvious).

* Don't Streamline. Maintain a variety of options for reexamination requesters.

3. Increase Access to Information in the Patent Office

* Update information in the patent office’s online databases regularly.

* Conduct and publish regular evaluations of effectiveness and performance within the Patent Office.

1. Software Patent Institute
2. Open Source as Prior Art
3. Patent Commons
4. Peer to Patent Project

The Project

So how do we confront these problems? Both the Federal Trade Commission and National Academy of Sciences have issued a series of recommendations for reforming the patent system, each of which provide a useful start. However, there is no guarantee that these reforms will be adopted or that they will be considered on any specific timeline. To help fill this gap, EFF is launching a Patent Busting Project to take on illegitimate patents that suppress non-commercial and small business innovation or limit free expression online. The Project has two components:

A. Documenting the Damage

In the coming months, EFF plans to launch various technical efforts to document the harm that these patents are causing to the public interest. The efforts will include:

(1) Identifying the worst offending patents;
(2) Documenting the prior art that shows their invalidity; and
(3) Chronicling the negative impact they have had on online publishers and innovators.

EFF plans to explore numerous approaches to achieving these goals, including inviting contributions from the public; building on the successful information-gathering and public education of the Chilling Effects Clearinghouse; and collaborating with organizations such as the Internet Archive, the Public Patent Foundation, and various technology law school clinics around the country.

B. Challenging The Patents

Once it has identified some of the worst offenders, EFF will begin filing challenges to each in the form of a ?re-examination request? to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. These requests create a forum to affirmatively invalidate patents rather than forcing technology users to await the threat of suit. Under this procedure, EFF can choose particularly egregious patents, submit the prior art it has collected, and argue that the patent should be revoked. EFF will collaborate with members of the software and Internet communities as well as legal clinics and pro bono cooperating attorneys to help in these efforts.