Legal Advocacy

2003 Echoing Green Fellow Dan Ravicher and his organization The Public Patent Foundation, along with the American Civil Liberties Union, recently filed suit against the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for granting patents on human genes.  They believe that by awarding patents on specific human genes to a single company, the trademark office is hindering the work of other researchers.  

One does not have go much further than learning of a patent called “Method of swinging on a swing” to realize that something is terribly wrong with the US Patent and Trademark Office (PTO). Luckily, reformers like Echoing Green Fellow, Daniel Ravicher, featured in last week’s Christian Science Monitor, push the PTO to limit granting patents that are undeserving.

2006 Echoing Green Fellow Sari Bashi’s organization Gisha recently commissioned Yoni Goodman, Director of Animation for the Academy Award-nominated film "Waltz with Bashir,” to make a short film about life in the Gaza Strip. The result is “Closed Zone,” a powerful 90 second animated film.

The Los Angeles Times recently highlighted the important work of 2007 Echoing Green Fellows Melvin Yee and Matthew Sirolly, founders of the Wage Justice Center. The Center—based in Los Angeles, California—fights to turn court victories for workers into real money. Even when workers won legal claims with the state for unpaid wages, some unscrupulous employers find creative ways to avoid payment.

As we noted in July, Karen Tse, a 2002 Echoing Green Fellow, has launched a JusticeMakers community competition to award $40,000 to help fund innovative criminal justice projects. The nominations are in, and it's time for the voting to begin!  Seven $5000 awards will be granted by a panel of expert judges and one "People's Choice" award will be determined by registered users of JusticeMakers.net.

Cheryl Dorsey, Echoing Green’s President, was interviewed on the radio program A World of Possibilities last week by host Mark Summer. Cheryl was part of an all-star panel for the “Foundations as Catalysts” series that also included 1995 Echoing Green Fellow Katie Redford, founder of EarthRights International. Cheryl covered a wide range of topics including the cross-fertilization of the for-profit and nonprofit sectors, the challenge of measuring social ROI, and the key to selecting successful Echoing Green Fellows.