Each month, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) bestows its “Stupid Patent of the Month” award on a newly issued patent the group deems unworthy. In April of this year, EFF gave the “Stupid Patent of the Month” award to U.S. Patent No. 9,013,334 “Notification systems and methods that permit change of quantity for delivery and/or pickup of goods and/or services.”
Scott Horstemeyer, a patent attorney and the inventor of the ‘334 patent, failed to see any humor in the award, so he filed a defamation lawsuit against EFF claiming that the article announcing the award was full of “false, malicious and defamatory remarks made under pretext of ‘reporting.’” However, after some correspondence with EFF, Mr. Horstemeyer withdrew his lawsuit.