It just keeps going, and going, and going…

The latest issue of Time magazine has an article on Cereality and other cereal cafes. Cereal Solidarity and FreeCulture.org are mentioned (second page) as evidence of a backlash against Cereality’s iron-fisted policing of their business model. The article is mostly sympathetic to Cereality–we kind of come off as loony radicals. But any press is good press, right?

To respond to part of the article:

“Freeculture turned Cereality into a poster child for anti-patent protest,” Roth says. “We’re just two guys trying to protect ourselves from big companies that could steal our intellectual property.”

However absurd the cereal wars may appear, Roth says he is simply trying to act before the really big guys muscle in on his highly expansible idea. “Starbucks could easily start selling cereal, catering to a sophisticated palate, to complement their coffee,” says Laurence Knight, president of Fletcher-Knight, a marketing consultancy based in Greenwich, Conn.”

The problem is that patents were meant to apply to inventions (which need protection to be profitable), not business models (which should produce profit all by themselves). What’s more, they aren’t “property”–they’re a government-granted monopoly, a privilege. It makes about as much sense to say that Cereality should own the idea of having a cereal bar as to say that Jamba Juice should own the idea of having a smoothie bar. (Coincidentally, Cereality sells smoothies, too.)

Cereality sees Starbucks or other big chains as threats, and they’re probably right about that. They have every right to try to grow quickly, create buzz, and use other sound business measures in order to avert that threat. In a competitive market, that’s what you have to do to survive. But Cereality does not have the right to shut others out of the market entirely. That’s just uncool.

Cereal Solidarity is still making headlines, and perhaps deservedly so. The patent office itself has taken notice of our efforts. In the patent examiner’s summary of a telephone interview with Cereality and their lawyers, the patent examiner mentioned the Cereal Solidarity website and asked Cereality to respond to our criticisms!

The Applicants’ claims of novelty and/or unobviousness were discussed related to the above-mentioned prior art and commonly known practices previously in the public domain. PTO personnel presented the Applicants with internet commentaries regarding the subject application (Attachments 1- Cereal Solidarity and 2 - Patent News: Bad Cereal…) and invited commentary. No agreement regarding novelty or unobviousness was reached.

To read this document and maybe some other boring documents (annoyingly the “Non-patent literature” is not posted online), just search for patent # 11/078,686… this quote is on the 6th page of the first document listed. Linking to the document itself is difficult, my apologies.

So as I was saying, our Cereal Solidarity efforts have been mentioned in some mainstream news sources recently, including the Salt Lake Tribune (Cereal Daze: Not Just For Kids) and In These Times (Snap, Crackle… Patents). Bizarrely, In These Times neglected to mention Cereal Solidarity itself, and they unfortunately called us FreeCulture instead of FreeCulture.org, but that’s OK because they interviewed many of our friends such as Jason Schultz from EFF, Kembrew McLeod, and Nicholas Reveille from Downhill Battle.

Also strangely, Gavin started the campaign and has been the driving force behind it, but I (Nelson) ended up being the only person interviewed about it, for the Salt Lake Tribune. Poor Gavin only got a misquote in the UK’s Daily Telegraph ( Bran hits the fan in US ‘cereal café’ wars), where a chunk of the website that Karen actually wrote was placed in his mouth. We were somewhat annoyed at this lack of journalistic integrity, but Karen thought it was funny.

We plan to deliver the petitions soon. Stay tuned!

Today I stumbled across this museum of obscure patents. Consider, for example:

• the beer-brella, an umbrella for your beer
• the toilet that incinerates your, er, waste
• leaf-gathering trousers
• a kit for painting with a baby’s bottom

May these fine examples of entrepreneurship brighten your day.

An update on our Cereal Solidarity campaign: We’ve finished collecting signatures on our No Business Method Patents petition — with over 300 signatures online — and we’re moving on to phase 2.

In the coming days, we’ll be drafting letters to deliver the petition to its targets. We’ll ask Cereality to make nice and withdraw their ridiculous patent application; we’ll ask the Patent Office to reject the patent if Cereality doesn’t; and we’ll ask Congress to eliminate business method patents for good.

In other news, there’s an article about Cereality and Cereal Solidarity in today’s Daily Pennsylvanian, the student paper at the University of Pennsylvania. The article, “Cereality warns potential copycats,” highlights the growth of other cereal bars across the U.S. In other words: lots of people will be in danger if this patent goes through.

The article also talks about Cereality’s trademarks. For the record, let me say that (IMHO and AFAIK) Cereality hasn’t done anything wrong with their trademarks. For instance, the article mentions a café in Iowa called Cerealogy that changed its name to avoid trademark infringement. That seems like a pretty good case to me: the names are rather similar, and there’s probably a good likelihood of consumer confusion, especially considering Cereality calls its employees “cerealogoists”. (If you can show me that the word “cerealogy” has been in general use for a long time, I might change my mind.)

In other words, we’re not anti-Cereality, nor are we anti-”intellectual property” (though we don’t like the term very much). I think Cereality is a good concept, and from what I’ve seen, it looks like a well-run business. We just think Cereality made a mistake when they decided to apply for a patent — and we think business method patents are a mistake all around.

In fact, I’m prepared to throw my support behind Cereality if they withdraw their application and join the growing coalition of voices against business method patents. We don’t want to be confrontational, especially if we don’t have to. I hope Cereality does the right thing.

Our campaign to end business method patents, Cereal Solidarity, is picking up steam. After being covered on Boing Boing and in Public Knowledge’s e-mail newsletter, it’s filtering its way into the public consciousness.

After only a few days, our online petition has over 200 signatures. Most of those come from the U.S., but a few originate abroad — from over a dozen other countries. This is a nice reminder that in most of the world, business method patents don’t exist — and rightly so!

Our message with Cereal Solidarity is that patents are not a God-given right, they are a government instrument obliged to serve the public interest. This theme is at the core of everything we do to combat the massive, unprecedented expansion of so-called “intellectual property protections”: that copyright, patents, et al. are not property at all, but rather limited state-granted monopolies to encourage creativity and innovation. That’s the view the U.S. Constituion takes, and it’s the only one that can protect individual freedoms and drive economic growth in the 21st century.

The IP maximalists don’t get it. They want a government hand-out; they’re aiming for a full-scale land grab, and so far, they’ve been pretty successful. But capitalism relies on the freedom to compete — and that’s exactly what the maximalists don’t want. If economies worldwide are to remain competitive in the next century, if new businesses are to have a fair chance against established corporations, and if individual user freedoms are to survive, we have to reject that worldview. We must keep the perspective that intellectual policy comes as part of the overall social contract between governors and the governed — that they must serve the public interest.

Right now, business method patents help neither consumers nor businesses. Just ask Bowls owner Rocco Monteleone. Or any of the other cereal bars popping up around the country. Or the Nonprofit Innovation Alliance, fighting to make sure that charities can do their work without having to navigate a patent minefield. For perspective, consider this piece from Business Week citing a recent survey that technology companies rank third in the average number of lawsuits faced — and that tech companies have the most in-house attorneys managing litigation.

Whether cereal bars or search engines, these are the vanguard of the future economy. These are the businesses lauded as the innovators, the movers and shakers, the wave of the future. But IP maximalism chills innovation, shuts it down, lock out newcomers and outsiders — it’s government protectionism of the lowest order. It discriminates precisely against the businesses who can move things forward — and it hurts our competitiveness as a society.

We know this. Now let’s make them listen. Sign the petition and tell Congress to make the law work for the public interest: end business method patents now.

Our newest project, Cereal Solidarity, is ready for public launch!

Last month, I was reading the campus newspaper here at the University of Florida. I came across an article on a new restaurant — a restaurant whose focus is serving cereal. “That’s an interesting idea,” I said to myself. “I should check it out some time.”

Then I kept reading — and was shocked.

When (Bowls owner Rocco) Monteleone took the first steps toward making his novel little idea of a café a reality in October of last year, he never thought about competition.

Gainesville had never seen a cereal café.

Other states had though. (Cereality founder David) Roth and his business partner Rick Bacher were the first business owners to sell cereal in a restaurant setting in 2003 with Cereality locations in Arizona, Illinois and Pennsylvania.

While Cereality hasn’t patented selling cereal, it is pretty close.

Roth and Bacher have pending business-method patents for six specific elements of how they sell cereal, including “displaying and mixing competitively branded food products” and adding “a third portion of liquid.”

I was determined to find out more. When I did, I went into action mode. I knew we couldn’t stand by.

When a restaurant tries to patent concepts as simple as mixing two cereals and adding milk — when patent bullies real businesses and entrepreneurs — FreeCulture.org stands up to express our solidarity.

It’s not just “a bad patent”. It’s a structural failing of the whole system. Patents make sense for mechnical and technological inventions. They don’t make sense for business methods — and they don’t belong there.

Cereal Solidarity is our project to express support for those who suffer under the current system, and raise our voice to cry out for reform.

FreeCulture.org is collecting signatures through the end of the month. We’re asking Cereality to make nice and withdraw their application; if not, we’re asking the Patent Office to reject it. And we’re asking Congress to end business method patents for good.

Visit the Cereal Solidarity site for more information. We need your signature on the petition. We want to show the decision-makers in Washington that we mean business and that real people care about these issues.

You can also host a local event: throw a cereal party, invite your friends, mix as many cereals as you like. We have some materials on the site. (If you do a local event, let me know at gavin@freeculture.org.)

Please sign the petition — and pass it on.