The Patent Protection Racket
Civilized people don’t pay up. They band together, and fight, and eliminate the problem. The EFF is launching a major initiative to reform the patent system. At Stack Exchange, we’re trying to help with Ask Patents, which will hopefully block a few bad patents before they get issued.
Lodsys is back at it, and this time, again, it’s doing more than merely threatening. It’s actually filing lawsuits. These lawsuits against app developers are just part of a dangerous recent trend of patent trolls going after end-users. For example, a shadowy collection of shell companies has been blanketing the nation with letters demanding that companies pay them $1000 per employee for the privilege of using standard office technology like scanners and email. And another patent troll is targeting the podcasting community.
