The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit organization focused on defending civil liberties in the digital world and a proponent of anti-troll patent reform, said more than 1,720 people have signed its Public Interest Patent Pledge to persuade universities not to sell or license their patents to patent assertion entities, though not a single university has taken the pledge.

“The Public Interest Patent Pledge is a promise that before selling or licensing its patents to a third party, a university will assess the business practices of that party and make sure that it will use those patents responsibly,” EFF says on its website.