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US Patent Office To Re-Examine Blackboard Patent
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.'"
I guess it would be pretty difficult for them to get over the prior art issue, considering they started in 1997. Maybe they're contending that all that other elearning before they even existed wasn't REAL elearning.
;)
As I work for a company that would have been negatively affected by this patent, I am really glad that this is happening. We've had "prior art" elearning related to basically all of their patents since 1995/96 specifically in a web-based format. Now watch the stock ticker on their site go zooming down once this actually goes through.
I think that, like frivilous lawsuits, frivilous patents should have equally painful repercussions. Blackboard should have to pay anyone showing reasonable claim to prior art a penalty for this
Government is slow for many reasons - and in most cases that is a good thing given all the stupid and strange things people try to do each year (at least that I see).
Realize that there is a tradeoff - if they make it fairly simple and quick to overturn patents, then the system will get bogged down with the same amount of spam through that pipe.
The patent system was designed with the idea that it would protect the rights of the patent holder. In the beginning, it was decently hard to patent junk and things that had prior art (due to the fact that each application was reviewed by someone who hopefully had some knowledge in the area). Fast forward to today when there are millions of patents granted each year. There is no way the system can check and review each patent application before it grants the patent (as it should).
Capitalism has little to do with it - the Patent office simply is getting overwhelmed by the numbers. It is more of a lack of qualified and trained staff to do the work (cause looking at patents all day is something that doesn't pay much and is fairly boring to most people).
There is always a frontier where there is an open and willing mind
As he explained to me, patent clerks are paid on a commission basis on how many patents they grant, not on how many they review. That, in and of itself, is rather discouraging
your friend is an idiot. patent clerks are paid a salary. there is no 'commission'. there is a production system, which is based on patents granted and patents reviewed and in-between.
Right now, he patent clerk's job is to assess prior patents (easy) but not prior art (expensive).
That would require the patent clerks to be, or to hire, experts in the relevant field. That's possible but expensive. The cost of doing so is almost certainly higher than the cost of the current system: hire experts only when the patent gets challenged.
Since very few patents ever do get challenged, we are probably all saving money with the USPTO the way it is.
FATMOUSE + YOU = FATMOUSE
Reexaminations cause a change to be made in the claims in 70%. In only 12% are all of the claims cancelled. In the remaining cases, the applicant amends at least one of the claims. However, that really doesn't mean that much as most patents have 20-30 admitted claims. As a patent litigator, I find reexams mostly useless because the Patent Office cannot look at any art other than patents and printed publications. Also, in inter partes reexams (the most common type), the person requesting the reexam only has one shot to say anything. After the reexam starts, it is all between the PTO and the patent holder. During litigation, I can have my experts, my clients, and myself telling the court why the patent is invalid.
Come play Heroes of Might and Magic Mini online.
Having VERY intimate knowledge of Bb (no, NOT an employee), I can tell you for a fact they are the quintessential bullies: they may be the biggest kid on the block, but they're none too smart.
They treat a good many customers as if Bb was the customer -- they are constantly issuing demands, determining their own timelines/deadlines. For example, they've been known to contact a school and say, "hey, we're taking your server down for maintenance/updates at such-and-such time, so be ready" instead of "when's a good time to do that?". They honestly feel these schools have no other choice as far as software, but a good many of their customers are waking up to the fact that Angel et al. are superior in most - if not all - aspects.
My opinion is the folks at the top KNOW their software just doesn't stack up well against the competition and that's why they're such thugs and so vehement in this whole patent mess. They probably figure "well, if we prevail in this patent mess, we can just license it out to these other vendors, make a nice fat percentage off that, and not even bother producing our own software anymore."
A good plan I guess. Make a piece off every distance learning program and lay off almost every staff member. That would make for a hell of an ROI.
BTW, be warned: I'm following Bb's lead of patenting a concept by patenting: the wheel, the lever, gardening, internal combustion engines, electicity, underwear, English AND Spanish language, and supermodels. Definitely supermodels.
In that lies their problem with this particular patent. Several companies have had internet-base elearning for a long time. Several were built before Blackboard was created. Innovation has absolutely occurred outside of blackboard's LMS. When we go into a client and part of our solution is to replace their LMS, and it's Blackboard, we typically get bonus points just for being so much better out of the box. They do have their little niche, but it is VERY little and they don't do it all that well.