EFF challenges patent threatening consumer awareness products

Electronic Frontier Foundation Media Release

For Immediate Release: Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Contact:

Jason Schultz
   Staff Attorney
   Electronic Frontier Foundation
   jason@eff.org
   +1 415 436-9333 x112

Paul Grewal
   Partner
   Day Casebeer Madrid & Batchelder
   pgrewal@daycasebeer.com
   +1 408 873-0110


EFF Challenges Bogus Patent Threatening Consumer Awareness
Products

Illegitimate Patent Inhibits Innovation in Market for
Mobile Information Access

San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)
took aim today at a bogus patent threatening innovative
technologies that enhance consumer awareness, requesting a
reexamination by the United States Patent and Trademark
Office (PTO).

NeoMedia Technologies, Inc., claims to own rights to all
systems that provide information over computer networks
using database-like lookup procedures that rely on scanned
inputs, such as a barcode.  NeoMedia has used these claims
not only to threaten and sue innovators in the mobile
information space, but also to intimidate projects focused
on increasing awareness among consumers about the social
and environmental impact of the products they buy.  For
example, the Consumer Information Lab at the College of
Natural Resources at the University of California at
Berkeley uses such technology to examine how health,
environmental, and social information affects consumers'
shopping behavior and decision-making.  Were NeoMedia to
control the patent rights to this technology, such projects
could be severely limited and potentially shut down.

"NeoMedia should not be allowed to use this bogus patent to
inhibit consumer awareness, education, or research into the
impact of information on consumer choice," said EFF Staff
Attorney Jason Schultz.  "This is the opposite of
'progress,' something the patent laws are supposed to
promote."

EFF's reexamination request shows that the functionality
covered by NeoMedia's bad patent was repeatedly included as
part of prior patent applications from other companies --
demonstrating that the idea of forming a network connection
from scanned items was well-known before NeoMedia made its
claim.  EFF, in conjunction with Paul Grewal and James
Czaja of Day Casebeer Madrid & Batchelder, ask the PTO to
revoke the patent based on this and other evidence.

"Our patent system is supposed to protect innovation, not
block it.  Everyone loses if the Patent Office allows these
kinds of abuses to continue," said Grewal, a partner at the
Day Casebeer firm.

The challenge to the NeoMedia patent is part of EFF's
Patent Busting Project, which combats the chilling effects
bad patents have on public and consumer interests.  So far,
the project has helped kill a bogus patent covering a
system and method of creating digital recordings of live
performances.  The PTO has also granted another EFF
reexamination request for an illegitimate patent for online
test-taking.

For the full NeoMedia patent reexamination request:
http://www.eff.org/patent/wanted/patent.php?p=neomedia

For more on EFF's Patent Busting Project:
http://www.eff.org/patent/

For more on Day Casebeer Madrid & Batchelder:
http://www.daycasebeer.com

For more information on the Consumer Information Lab at UC
Berkeley's College of Natural Resources:
http://nature.berkeley.edu/infolab/projects/informationto... 


For this release:
http://www.eff.org/news/archives/2007_04.php#005214

About EFF

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is the leading civil
liberties organization working to protect rights in the
digital world. Founded in 1990, EFF actively encourages and
challenges industry and government to support free
expression and privacy online. EFF is a member-supported
organization and maintains one of the most linked-to
websites in the world at http://www.eff.org/


     -end-

_______________________________________________
presslist mailing list
https://falcon.eff.org/mailman/listinfo/presslist