The importance of the US Patent Office’s “inter partes review” (IPR) process was highlighted in dramatic fashion yesterday. Patent appeals judges threw out a patent [PDF] that was used to sue more than 80 companies in the fitness, wearables, and health industries.
US Patent No. 7,454,002 was...

Once-secret surveillance court orders obtained by EFF last week show that even when the court authorizes the government to spy on specific Americans for national security purposes, that authorization can be misused to potentially violate other people’s civil liberties.
These documents raise larger questions about whether the government...

Trying to succeed as a startup is hard enough. Getting a frivolous patent infringement demand letter in the mail can make it a whole lot harder. The experience of San Francisco-based Motiv is the latest example of how patent trolls impose painful costs on small startups and stifle innovation.
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If you watched this year’s Super Bowl, you might have seen an advertisement for Dodge Ram featuring a Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. voiceover. To criticize the ad, and to show how antithetical it was to King’s views, Current Affairs magazine created a new version. The ...

UPDATE Feb. 14, 2018: Today, President Trump endorsed Sen. Grassley's bill on border and immigration issues (H.R. 2579). EFF opposes it. Like many of its predecessors, this bill would expand invasive surveillance on Americans and foreigners alike, with biometric screening, social media snooping, drones, and automatic license plates...

Although a federal appeals court this week agreed to dismiss a case alleging that Twitter provided material support for terrorists in the form of accounts and direct messaging services, the court left the door open for similar lawsuits to proceed in the future. This is troubling because the threat of...

Last week AT&T has decided it’s good business to advocate for an “Internet Bill of Rights.” Of course, that catchy name doesn’t in any way mean that what AT&T wants is a codified list of rights for Internet users. No, what AT&T wants is to keep a firm hold on...