[Infowarrior] - Patent trolls seek to intimidate EFF supporters, EFF fights back

[Richard Forno]

Podcasting patent trolls seek to intimidate EFF supporters, EFF fights back

Cory Doctorow at 10:00 pm Thu, Jan 30, 2014

Personal Audio is a patent troll that claims to own the process of sending audio around because they bought a patent from a guy who read Scientific American articles onto cassette tapes and sent them through the mail (seriously!). The Electronic Frontier Foundation is seeking to invalidate this patent -- which Personal Audio is using to shake down all kinds of indie podcasters for protection money -- using a new, cheaper, streamlined process.

Personal Audio is fighting dirty. They've filed an expensive lawsuit outside of the patent proceeding, and subpoenaed the names and personal details of everyone who donated to the campaign against their patent, purely to raise the price of adjudicating their patent and to intimidate podcasters who gave to the litigation fund rather than paying off Personal Audio.

EFF is fighting back. At stake is the process that is supposed to fix one tiny corner of the patent quagmire -- if Personal Audio's tactic succeeds, it will kill Congress's patent-fix dead.

The Juelsgaard Intellectual Property and Innovation Clinic at Stanford Law School has offered free counsel to anyone who's worried about the subpoena.

< - >

http://boingboing.net/2014/01/30/podcasting-patent-trolls-seek.html

---
Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it.