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US Patent Office To Re-Examine Blackboard Patent

Posted by kdawson on from the no-chalk-for-you dept.

Mr_5tein writes "Groklaw is reporting that the US Patent and Trademark Office has just ordered a re-examination of the e-learning patent owned by Blackboard Inc, thanks to a filing by the Software Freedom Law Center. SFLC's press release states, 'The Patent Office found that prior art cited in SFLC's request raises "a substantial new question of patentability" regarding all 44 claims of Blackboard's patent...' The SFLC explains that though such re-examinations may take a couple of years to complete, approximately '70% of re-examinations are successful in having a patent narrowed or completely revoked.'"

3 of 115 comments (clear)

  1. Who drives it and will they succeed? by chriss · · Score: 5, Informative

    I develop educational software myself, so I'm very pleased with this. Two points seem to be especially interesting:

    • Although Blackboard sued Desire2Learn, a commercial entity, for patent infringement, the reexamination is drive by three open source projects, supported by pro-bono Software Freedom Law Center. So a tendency of free software to fight patents directly.
    • According to TFA 70% of all reexaminations lead to narrowing or revoking the patent, but this is an average over all reexaminations. There has been a lot of prior art here, so I think the chances are even higher here.
    --
    memomo: free web based language trainer DE-EN-ES-FR-IT
  2. USPTO a profit-center by golodh · · Score: 3, Informative
    Yes, you are completely right ... the USPTO is one of those rarest things ... a Government profit center. It's revenues come from the fees for the patents it awards. One granted patent = one billable fee.

    This might explain why the USPTO shows so little interest in making sure that the patents it awards are of high quality. For the USPTO it makes absolutely no economic sense to it spend more time on individual patents than the absolute minimum.

    After all, there is this appeal procedure right? So if people have objections to patents we issue they can use that. In the mean time, when you're paid by the item it makes absolutely no sense to spend too much time perfecting each item you make. And if people out there don't like a patent we issue, then they can pay us a fee for a review procedure.

    Simple economics really. That's what management is all about, right?

  3. Re:IMHO by Mr_5tein · · Score: 3, Informative

    Well, several folks have commented that one should not be able to patent an educational process or method, implying that Blackboard has attempted to do so. They have not; instead, Blackboard has patented tools and features in it's online learning management software that they claim they invented--the problem is that these tools and features have existed in numerous forms in scores of other software packages on various platforms, and cited prior art demonstrates that these tools and features were even available on specifically education-oriented software prior to Blackboard's existence. Of the 44 Blackboard patent claims challenged, the SFLC's request includes Blackboards patents on user role/file access elements (e.g. use of a file dropbox for assignments, online testing, use of a hyperlink to access a list of course documents, use of a hyperlinks to access communication tools, the communication tools themselves such as chat and discussion forums, etc etc).