Online Testing Patented

An anonymous reader writes "For those who think that online testing is an obvious idea, please be advised that the USPTO recently issued U.S. Patent No. 6,513,042 for online testing to two Ohio inventors. According to an article in NEOhio CrainTech, "As of last week, Test Central Inc. in Cleveland owns the U.S. patent to conduct testing via the Internet and, in essence, owns the online testing business.""

Comments

Breadth: Doesn't cover all online tests

[DeadSea]

The patent does not cover all online tests. There are numerous ways to avoid infringing on this patent.

In claim 1:

wherein a test-taker is required to pay to take the compiled test;

If there is no money involved you do not violate this patent. If you pay for a course and take a test as part of that course there are other ways around it

In claim 13:

wherein a test-maker and a proprietor of the first computer share the revenues generated by the test-taker taking the test.

There must be at least two parties making money of the testing. The first being the test maker and the second being the person who owns testing computer. If you make your own tests and host the tests on your own computer, you do not infringe.

There are also claims about creating and filing tests. It appears that if you were to choose a category for your test and then create the test in that category you would not infringe. (As opposed to creating the test, putting it in a temporary folder, and then moving it to the proper place as covered by the patent.)

Although I am skilled in the art, I am no patent lawyer. The patent system says that only a patent lawyer, and not somebody skilled in the art can say what a patent is about, so run this by your patent lawyer before making tests online.

Prior Art

[MrIcee]

This patent will not survive long. In August of 1995 our company did an internet site for PICTORIAL in Indianapolis. Pictorial is the nations leading seller of testing for insurance employees (among other types of tests). We were requested to design an entire on-line testing system that would enable clients to take the tests online, have them graded automatically, and have the results of the test stored and also sent out to the client.

We complete the site in early 1996. I see that this company APPLIED for their patent in 1999.

While I know that our system was one of the early testing systems available - it was by no means the only one.

Again, another example of an utterly failed patent system awarding patents where prior art is VERY obvious.

Want to tell the USPTO about this?

[Tyriel]

If you want to holla back at the USPTO, and tell them how much prior art has gone through these precise methods, you can mail them the below addresses, quoted from the USPTO site:

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Please address mail to be delivered by the United States Postal Service
(USPS) as follows:

Box
Commissioner for Patents
Washington, D.C. 20231

Please address mail to be delivered by other delivery services (Federal
Express (Fed Ex), UPS, DHL, Laser, Action, Purolater, etc.) as follows:

U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
2011 South Clark Place
Customer Window, Box
Crystal Plaza Two, Lobby, Room 1B03
Arlington, Virginia 22202

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You can also call them at: 800-PTO-9199 (800-786-9199) or 703-308-HELP (703-308-4357)

Personally, I'd quote them a dozen or so sites that use online tests regularly, especially for-profit (i guess thespark.com doesn't qualify =P) and then mention the general case of Universities, who are slowly moving towards great use of online tests to ease their administrative loads. I'm sure enough comments can get a patent reviewed.

Re:Want to tell the USPTO about this?

[Groote Ka]

AFAIK, just one posting can. Gather enough prior art and ask for re-examination. Read this carefully. I cannot provide proper advise, since I am not that familiar with US law.

Unfortunately, you cannot participate in the proceedings, but I have cought rumours that the USPTO will change re-examination procedures to inter partes proceedings, bringing it more in line with the opposition procedures of the European and Japanese Patent Offices (both built on the unequalled German patent system (BTW, I am not a German))

Re:Anyone got prior art?

[Anonymous Coward]

The University of Texas at Austin Physics classes had a system for homework which was online. Values in the problems were different for each student which were accessed and submitted by a web browser. This should fall under the "assessments" category. This was in place in 1998 and I believe it was a couple of years old then.