Author: Joe Mullin

The rights we have in the offline world–to speak freely, create culture, play games, build new things and do business–must be available to us online, as well. This core belief drives EFF’s work to fight the misuse of the patent system.  Despite significant progress we’ve made over the last decade, patents, and in particular vague […]

EFF supporters get that strong encryption is tied to one of our most basic rights: the right to have a private conversation. In the digital world, privacy is impossible without strong encryption.  That’s why we’ve always got an eye out for attacks on encryption. This year, we pushed back—successfully—against anti-encryption laws proposed in the U.S., […]

It’s critical that copyright be balanced with limitations that support users’ rights, and perhaps no limitation is more important than fair use. Critics, humorists, artists, and activists all must have rights to re-use and re-purpose source material, even when it’s copyrighted.  Yesterday, EFF weighed in on another case that could shape the future of our […]

For years now, deep-pocketed individuals and corporations have been turning to civil lawsuits to silence their opponents. These Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation, or SLAPPs, aren’t designed to win on the merits, but rather to harass journalists, activists, and consumers into silence by suing them over their protected speech. While 34 states have laws to […]

Good news: the Senate Judiciary Committee has dropped one of the two terrible patent bills it was considering, the patent-troll-enabling Patent Eligibility Restoration Act (PERA). Bad news: the committee is still pushing the PREVAIL Act, a bill that would hamstring the U.S.’s most effective system for invalidating bad patents. PREVAIL is a windfall for patent […]

Update 11/14/2024: The PERA and PREVAIL patent bills were pulled at the last minute today, without getting a committee vote. Senators are right to have concerns with these deeply flawed bills. We hope to engage with the next Congress on real patent fixes—changes that will create a more fair system for small companies and everyday users of […]

In 2022, three companies with strange names and no clear business purpose beyond  patent litigation filed dozens of lawsuits in Delaware federal court, accusing businesses of all sizes of patent infringement. Some of these complaints claimed patent rights over basic aspects of modern life; one, for example, involved a  patent that pertains to the process […]

At EFF we’ve long noted that you cannot build a backdoor that only lets in good guys and not bad guys. Over the weekend, we saw another example of this: The Wall Street Journal reported on a major breach of U.S. telecom systems attributed to a sophisticated Chinese-government backed hacking group dubbed Salt Typhoon. According […]

Update 9/26/24: The hearing and scheduled committee vote on PERA and PREVAIL was canceled. Supporters can continue to register their opposition via our action, as these bills may still be scheduled for a vote later in 2024.  The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee is set to vote this Thursday on two bills that could significantly empower patent trolls. The Patent […]

Update 9/20: The Senate vote scheduled for Thursday, Sep. 19 has been rescheduled for Thursday, Sep. 26.  A patent on crowdfunding. A patent on tracking packages. A patent on photo contests. A patent on watching an ad online. A patent on computer bingo. A patent on upselling.  These are just a few of the patents […]