Author: Joe Mullin

A functioning patent system depends on one basic principle: bad patents must be challengeable. In 2025, that principle was repeatedly tested—by Congress, by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), and by a small number of large patent owners determined to weaken public challenges.  Two damaging bills, PERA and PREVAIL, were reintroduced in Congress. At […]

Lawmakers in Washington are once again focusing on kids, screens, and mental health. But according to Congress, Big Tech is somehow both the problem and the solution. The Senate Commerce Committee held a hearing today on “examining the effect of technology on America’s youth.” Witnesses warned about “addictive” online content, mental health, and kids spending […]

Government invasion of a reporter’s home, and seizure of journalistic materials, is exactly the kind of abuse of power the First Amendment is designed to prevent. It represents the most extreme form of press intimidation.  Yet, that’s what happened on Wednesday morning to Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson, when the FBI searched her Virginia home […]

We’re taking part in Copyright Week, a series of actions and discussions supporting key principles that should guide copyright policy. Every day this week, various groups are taking on different elements of copyright law and policy, and addressing what’s at stake, and what we need to do to make sure that copyright promotes creativity and […]

A massive wave of public comments just told the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO): don’t shut the public out of patent review. EFF submitted its own formal comment opposing the USPTO’s proposed rules, and more than 4,000 supporters added their voices—an extraordinary response for a technical, fast-moving rulemaking. We comprised more than one-third of […]

EFF has submitted its formal comment to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) opposing a set of proposed rules that would sharply restrict the public’s ability to challenge wrongly granted patents. These rules would make inter partes review (IPR)—the main tool Congress created to fix improperly granted patents—unavailable in most of the situations where […]

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has proposed new rules that would effectively end the public’s ability to challenge improperly granted patents at their source—the Patent Office itself. If these rules take effect, they will hand patent trolls exactly what they’ve been chasing for years: a way to keep bad patents alive and out […]

A.B. 412, the flawed California bill that threatened small developers in the name of AI “transparency,” has been delayed and turned into a two-year bill. That means it won’t move forward in 2025—a significant victory for innovation, freedom to code, and the open web. EFF opposed this bill from the start. A.B. 412 tried to […]

The Canadian government is preparing to give away Canadians’ digital lives—to U.S. police, to the Donald Trump administration, and possibly to foreign spy agencies. Bill C-2, the so-called Strong Borders Act, is a sprawling surveillance bill with multiple privacy-invasive provisions. But the thrust is clear: it’s a roadmap to aligning Canadian surveillance with U.S. demands.  […]

EFF has joined more than 80 civil society organizations, companies, and cybersecurity experts in signing a letter urging the European Commission to change course on its recently announced “Technology Roadmap on Encryption.” The roadmap, part of the EU’s ProtectEU strategy, discusses new ways for law enforcement to access encrypted data. That framing is dangerously flawed.  […]