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.'"

Comments

patents are f,,,ing evil

[argoff]

Actually it would be best of all if patents didn't exist at all. Patents are not an incentive, not a property, but a tool of coercion, they are a tool of violence. If your factory has an invention that you don't have permission to use, then men with guns have a "rigt" to visit you and rip it out. This tool of violence was responsible for lawsuits in the world court to halt the manufacture of generic AIDS drugs, and the resulting death of millions of people in Africa. This tool of violence was used to hold back air-bags and anti lock breaks in cars for nearly twenty years while over a million people died who didn't need to. This tool of violence is responsible for every industry and every manufactuor having incompatable parts and the massive costs and enviromental damage that leads to. This tool of violence is repsonsible for whole classes of drugs that have bizare chemichal side effects, that needn't be there except for the sake of patentability. This tool of violence saddles nearly every high tech startup with tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of protective legal manuvers before they even sell a product. Almost every technology market has a 20 year lag time between discovery and marketability, hmmmm why is that?

This tool of violence tends to punish and isolate researchers, because ones who collaberate are punished - then people say "well ge golly, why are those inventors such lonely tinkerers?" This tool of violence tends to drive up R&D costs by orders of magnitude, then people say "well ge golly, why is pharmacutical R&D so expensive?" Well dammit.

Re:patents are f,,,ing evil

[DoktorMel]

I find it thoroughly depressing that this paragraph and a half of nonsense was modded up as "insightful." I had always thought that "ignorant vitriol" and "insight" would be relatively difficult to get confused but, as with so many opinions I've held that tend to see h. sapiens in a hopeful light, I appear to be wrong.