"End Software Patents" Launches With Website and Report

Coming in fashionably late to the "great patent reform debate", this organization (covered previously here) "will initially focus on two approaches: 1) assisting corporations that choose to challenge software patents in the courts and at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) on the basis that patents for software and designs with no physically innovative step have no legal validity, and 2) public education aimed at passing laws to protect software from patent law."

Not to be confused with NoSoftwarePatents.com, End Software Patents has backing from the Free Software Foundation, the Public Patent Foundation (PUBPAT), and the Software Freedom Law Center. It has been reported that End Software Patents has corporate backers, but their identities have been protected to date.

The organization has also published a study (link), titled "State of Software and Business Method Patents" in which it is alleged that:

1) US companies spend $11.4 billion annually on software patent litigation;

2) Software patent infringement suits are increasingly targeted against non-software companies in the general economy, for example, companies who infringe software patents simply by having a website with certain configurations; and

3) Recent rulings and statements by the U.S. Supreme Court and the U.S.
Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) support the position that software is not
patentable.

Visit their website here (link)