000216	01-intro-to-patent-busting_wmp_a_16.wma
000000	This Erik Schmidt with Tech Law Forum.
000004	We're here at the offices of the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco.
000008	And we're talking with Jason Schultz, who heads the EFF's Patent Busting Project.
000014	JASON SCHULTZ: Hi there.
000017	So the first thing we'd like to ask you Jason is how did the Patent Busting Project start and what's its purpose?
000024	JASON SCHULTZ: Well, the Patent Busting Project started a couple of years ago at EFF.
000029	We had been getting a lot of folks who were contacting us for help with patents, and not your usual accused infringers as they say.
000041	Normally it's large companies who are involved in patent disputes, Microsoft and IBM type companies.
000047	But we were starting to hear from little people in small mom-and-pop businesses that would get these threat letters.
000054	And it would say you have to pay this patent licensing fee.
000056	And so when we started looking at it we noticed that there were companies who are going after little people to try and squeeze them basically out of some money.
000106	Because they knew it was so expensive to hire a patent attorney and to fight a patent in court that they could basically 
000114	essentially extort them for the settlement value.
000118	So we started to collect the stories and we actually had a contest for people to submit the worst patents out there 
000126	that people were actually using to threaten folks with.
000130	And we got over 200 submissions and then we picked a sort of top ten.
000135	So they became our top 10 most wanted list of that patents that were being used to shake people down.
000141	And we tried to emphasize also that the patents, the ones that might -- that the patents be ones that might affect free-speech 
000150	or kind of individual rights or things those are sort of more socially valuable on the Internet too.
000157	And in doing so we came up with this list of ten.
000201	And then the Patent Busting Project chose to gather up what's called prior art.
000206	Which is the evidence of the patent invalid that this saying it claims to have invented has been done before.
000211	And then submit that to the patent office asking that the patents be revoked.