Stupid Patent of the Month: Selfie Contests

Patents are supposed to be an incentive to invent. Too often, they end up being a way to try to claim “ownership” of what should be basic building blocks of human activity, culture, and knowledge. This is especially true of software patents, an area EFF has been speaking out about for more than 20 years now. 

This month’s Stupid Patent, No. 8,655,715, continues the tradition of trying to use software language to capture a monopoly on a basic …