Bonum Certa Men Certa

Joe Mullin Joins the EFF to Fight Mean Software Patents, Starting With Coverage About Unified Patents Defeating Sportbrain

Related: CAFC Meddling in PTAB Affairs; Unified Patents Fights a Good Fight by Invalidating Software Patents

Joe Mullin
Joe Mullin's Twitter account



Summary: The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) has just smashed another troublesome patent and Joe Mullin was there, this time in EFF clothing, to cover it

THE previous post spoke about patent trolls with USPTO-granted patents and the EFF's response to them. The good news is, not only does the EFF tackle the right issues (it used to have a poorer and rather misguided strategy). The EFF has just hired Joe Mullin for activism/journalism against software patents and patent trolls -- something he had done in a blog before some media companies took him on board. Eventually he must have realised that advocacy without the whole pretense of "balance" would be better use of his time; at least that's what happened with me (more than a decade ago I wrote for media companies, but they did not give me sufficient freedom to express myself).



"The EFF has just hired Joe Mullin for activism/journalism against software patents and patent trolls -- something he had done in a blog before some media companies took him on board.""I'm happy to report I'm working at @EFF now," he announced in Twitter, "working mostly on IP-related things.

"Here's my first blog post," he wrote after had published this piece about Sportbrain [1, 2, 3] (covered here before). To quote:

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 owned by Sportbrain Holdings, a company that advertised a kind of ‘smart pedometer’ as recently as 2011. But the product apparently didn’t take off, and in 2016, Sportbrain turned to patent lawsuits to make a buck.

A company called Unified Patents challenged the ’002 patent by filing an IPR petition, and last year, the Patent Office agreed that the patent should be reviewed. Yesterday, the patent judges published their decision, canceling every claim of the patent.

The ’002 patent describes capturing a user’s “personal data,” and then sharing that information with a wireless computing device and over a network. It then analyzes the data and provides feedback.

After reviewing the relevant technology, a panel of patent office judges found there wasn’t much new to the ’002 patent. Earlier patents had already described collecting and sharing various types of sports data, including computer-assisted pedometers and a system that measured a skier’s “air time.” Given those earlier advances, the steps of the Sportbrain patent would have been obvious to someone working in the field. The office cancelled all the claims.

That means the dozens of different companies sued by Sportbrain won’t have to each spend hundreds of thousands of dollars—potentially millions—to defend against a patent that, the government now acknowledges, never should have been granted in the first place.


Joe Mullin was debunking patent myths and naming trolls even recently (he had covered other topics too). He often referred to (and cited) EFF posts, but now he's joining Ranieri and Nazer (there used to be more staff assigned to deal with the patent matters)‏. He'll be working alongside them rather than writing about them. Mullin is a very knowledgeable person; I spoke to him on the phone last year.

Sportbrain's patent has been "found invalid," Unified Patents said some days ago (a day after it was confirmed). We saw that almost immediately because we're subscribed to the RSS feed. To quote: "On February 6, 2018, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board issued a final written decision in Unified Patents Inc. v. Harry Heslop & Sportbrain Holdings, LLC, IPR2016-01464 invalidating all challenged claims of U.S. Patent 7,454,002, owned and asserted by Sportbrain Holdings, LLC. The '002 Patent, which describes a system for monitoring and providing feedback on a user's physical data, has been asserted 148 cases (17 of which were pending at the time of this decision). Defendants in these cases span across multiple industries and include such companies as Verizon, Fitbit, Microsoft, LG, TomTom, Garmin, Louis Vuitton, ZTE and Apple."

"Joe Mullin was debunking patent myths and naming trolls even recently (he had covered other topics too)."Apple is named last. Apple very recently settled in patent dispute, shelling out $871,500. It could possibly just fight against that patent until the end, but it chose not to. Less than a million dollars is 'slush funds' to Apple. As the article notes, it recently paid far more to settle other patent cases.

PTAB has been doing very well lately and we'll have a lot to say about it over the weekend. To quote some recent statistics: "On January 31, the PTAB Affirmed Examiners' 101 Rejections for 9 Cases; Denied Reconsideration of 101 Rejections in 3 Cases and Reversed Examiners' 101 Rejections in 2 Cases."

"In the past 2-3 years -- and not just owing to Alice -- we often get the feeling that we're finally 'winning' (as some might put it) and the US patent system gets reformed to better suit science and technology, not patenters and litigators."So they deal with quite a few patent applications, not just patents that are either used in litigation or for threats of litigation. This helps limit patent scope. One journalist focused on patent matters said the other day that "Senator Susan Collins told @BloombergLaw the Special Committee on Aging is working to draft a bill to restrict certain types of patents on drugs, such as new formulations, to limit evergreening, reports @BronwynMixter..."

"Fantastic news," I responded to her. "A push back against patent maximalism, which made the patent system lose its sight on purpose..."

In the past 2-3 years -- and not just owing to Alice -- we often get the feeling that we're finally 'winning' (as some might put it) and the US patent system gets reformed to better suit science and technology, not patenters and litigators. That's the desirable thing for a patent system anywhere.

Recent Techrights' Posts

IBM Has Taken Control of GNOME
Don't expect a successor to be found any time soon
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, August 30, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, August 30, 2025
 
Links 31/08/2025: Baggage Claim Scams, an Insurrectionist’s War on Culture, and a Sudden Robotics Hype
Links for the day
Gemini Links 31/08/2025: Reviewing Netsurf and Slightly Less Historic Ada Design
Links for the day
Links 31/08/2025: Google Gmail Data Breach and LF Puff Pieces for Pay
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
This is What Google News Has Become
Moments ago
The Slopfarm WebProNews Has Turned Google News Into a Laughing Stock Full of Plagiarism by Slop
If Google News dies of neglect, that's one thing. It's starting to seem like active neglect by Google is a form of participation.
Do What is Moral, as What's Legal Isn't Always Moral
Do what's objectively moral, no matter the costs and the risks
Slopwatch: Google News Assisting Plagiarism and Anti-Linux FUD, Serial Slopper Rips Off Linux-Centric Journalists
This makes the Web a much worse place and lessens the incentive to do journalism
Links 30/08/2025: NVIDIA Fakes Results to Hide a Bubble Already in Implosion Phase, Data Breaches Galore, Important Win for Workers' Union in Canada
Links for the day
Representing and Speaking for Animals
If I ever choose to take this matter to tribunal with animals-centric NGOs on my side, it'll get some press coverage for sure
The UEFI 9/11 - Part II - Campaign of Censorship and Defamation Against Critics
In dictatorships, humour serves an important role. It's tragic.
In Kazakhstan, Yandex Estimated to be 20 Times Bigger Than Microsoft
Bing is measured as down this month
Shutterstock Not Enough? The Register MS Uses Slop Images in Articles (Seemingly More and More Over Time)
Cost-saving trajectory amid office shutdown?
Gemini Links 30/08/2025: Games, PostmarketOS, and Slop
Links for the day
Links 30/08/2025: Imgur Uproar and Many Ukraine Updates (Mediazona Reports Over 200,000 Russians Died for Putin)
Links for the day
How Not to Build Software
code forges that need a Web browser perhaps fill some 'niche' demand
GAFAM and "MATA"
The use of dark humour there hopefully helps illuminate what a lot of "modern" technology became like and how it interacts with human civilisation (to what ends and whose gain)
Birds Are Not "Pests and Vermin", Privacy is Not a Crime, and GNU/Linux is Not 'Hacking Platform'
I could not help but think of Free software analogies
The Sites Should Be Very Fast Again
That issue is now resolved
Flying in 2025
worse than ever before
Activists, Including Technical Activists, Need Not Pursue Affirmation
Techrights doesn't play or participate in a "popularity contest"
The UEFI 9/11 - Part III - Chaos is Scheduled to Happen Second Thursday of September (No Matter What the Microsofters Tell You)
The clock is ticking
Downplaying the Impact of "UEFI 9/11" is a Losing Strategy
we won't publish much whilst on holiday
Government Sites Should Run Free Software
Not proprietary bloatware with buzzwords
LLM Slopfarms Take No Breaks
When people run sites by bots they don't need to worry about "breaks"
GNOME Having a Meltdown Again
Thanks and farewell to Steven Deobald
Gemini Links 30/08/2025: Low Tech and Hunchbin 1.0.6
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, August 29, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, August 29, 2025
Financiers and Sponsors of the Slop Hype (Pyramid Scheme Waiting to End, Bubble That Will Inevitably Implode)
It's also burning the planet
Slopwatch: Fake Articles About "Linux", Google Helps Ponzi Schemes and Slopfarms in Google News
Slopfarms are a real pain
Gemini Links 29/08/2025: Retiring at 62 and URL Filtering HTTP(S) Proxy on Qubes OS
Links for the day
Links 29/08/2025: Lisa Cook Sues Convicted Felon and Backdoor Mandate in UK Resisted
Links for the day
Links 29/08/2025: Arti 1.5.0, War on Public Health (CDC), and Slop 'Bros' Made to Pay for Their Mass Plagiarism
Links for the day
No, 4Chan is Not Fighting for You by Lawyering Up Against Ofcom (UK)
Don't mistake proto-fascists for people who "fight for you". They don't.
In Many Places in the World Vista 11 "Market Share" is Going Down, Not Up
In some countries Windows is already down to third place or lower
More Microsoft-Connected Layoffs, at Least Third Time This Month! (Also Another Death on Campus)
Microsoft as a "gaming" company is where studios, projects, games, and even developers come to die
Slopwatch: Fake Articles About "Linux", Slop Images in VentureBeat, Linux Foundation Spam Made With LLM Slop and Slop Images
The only relief or upside - if any exists - is that the pace of slop was down a bit this week
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, August 28, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, August 28, 2025
Gemini Links 29/08/2025: Poems, Games, and Java 25 Performance
Links for the day