Striking Down Business Method Patents

FreeCulture is sponsoring Cereal Solidarity, an attempt to reform business method patents.

What are they upset about? You can read more at the site, but briefly, a cereal bar called "Bowls" opened up in Gainsville, Florida specializing in -- what else? -- selling cereal. All was going smoothly until Bowls was threatened with a cease and desist from another company, "Cereality", which claims to have patents pending on "displaying and mixing competitively branded food products" and adding "a third portion of liquid."

Now, this isn't the first absurd business method patent to come around. Amazon's one-click patent and Priceline's reverse auction patents come to mind. But freeculture's campaign against these silly monopolies is well organized. They have a petition to congress for you to sign and a number of other activities you can participate in. Get involved.