The Patent Eligibility Restoration Act (PERA) would throw out Supreme Court rules that limit patents on abstract ideas. If PERA passes, it will open the floodgates for far more vague and overbroad software patents. It will even allow for patents on human genes.
No one should be allowed to take an abstract idea, add generic computer language, and get a patent. And we should never see patents on human genetic material itself. But if PERA passes, that’s exactly what will happen.
The UK government has had years to revise its Online Safety Bill into a proposal that wouldn’t harm users’ basic rights. It has failed to do so. As drafted, the Bill undermines end-to-end encryption and would make UK businesses and individuals less safe online—including the very groups that the bill intends to protect. Proposals like this threaten a basic human right: our right to have a private conversation. We know that several members are on the fence about this issue. Please help by telling them to protect encryption.