Wired: EFF to Fight Dubious Patents
Libertarian group Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) announced it would try to break ten silly patents in an attempt to curb abuse of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's incompetence in granting obvious non-innovations. First on the list is the infamous Amazon.com "one-click" patent. The Patent Office went through a period of a few years when it was apt to grant patents for things that would be considered unpatentably obvious in the real world, yet - oddly - innovative when done on the Internet.
The EFF seems to be taking this on as a populist cause, explicitly saying that it is trying to do this not so much to clear up the business environment for libertarian hygiene, but rather to help out individuals, small businesses and, especially, nonprofits.
"Traditionally, corporations have used patents to protect their work, but we've been seeing patents more and more frequently asserted against nonprofits and individuals and other nontraditional targets for patent enforcement."
