Overturning bad patents does not happen at Internet speed, and if you need evidence for that thesis, consider the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Patent Busting Project. The group set out to overturn 10 hugely broad patents back in 2004; four years later, only six of the patent reexamination requests have even been written, much less acted on. But the good news for the EFF is that it is batting 1.000 with its filings, as the US Patent & Trademark Office has just granted the EFF's sixth patent reexam request.

Writing the patent reexam requests takes plenty of time and research into possible claims that predate the patent in question. And even when a reexam request is granted, the process can drag on for years. If this all seems absurdly slow, this chart of the reexam process should suggest just why it takes so long.

The EFF's latest target has been patent 5,886,274, controlled by Seer Systems. It covers "a system and method for joining different musical data types together in a file, distributing them over the Internet, and then playing that file." But, according to the EFF and law firm Day Casebeer Madrid & Batchelder, plenty of art predates the patent, which was filed in 1997 and granted in 1999.

In fact, according to EFF Attorney Michael Kwun, the inventor of the patent had himself publicized the basic ideas in a book on MIDI written before the patent was filed. Stanley Jungleib "encouraged others to use the techniques he described in his book and sought patent protection only after those ideas had entered the public domain," said Kwun. "It's unfortunate that Seer Systems didn't call Mr. Jungleib's book and the other prior art we cited to the PTO's attention before the patent issued."

USPTO agrees that a closer look is needed. In the document granted the reexam request, the Patent Office noted that the Jungleib book raises a substantial issue of patentability—as do two other sources.

The reexamination doesn't ensure any particular outcome, but most patents that undergo reexamination do have their claims at least narrowed, while others are thrown out altogether. EFF has already gotten one patent tossed, but there's little more it can do now to speed the five other pending reexaminations along.

As Michael Kwun explained to me, "The other five are at various stages in the reexam process. Each of those five reexams is a so-called ex parte reexamination. That means, for the most part, that the rest of the reexamination is conducted between the PTO and the patentee. There is another form of reexamination, called an inter partes reexamination, in which the requester [EFF] can continue to participate in the reexamination proceedings on an ongoing basis, but that type of reexamination can only take place with respect to newer patents."

For now, then, it's wait and see—and prepare the next reexam request. But simply gaining a reexamination is a significant victory, one that lets the "EFF marshals" slap another red stamp across another broad patent.