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Khan Academy Seeks Patents On Learning Computer Programming, Social Programming
theodp writes: When it announced its brand new Computer Science platform in August 2012, Khan Academy explained it drew inspiration from both Bret Victor and GitHub (SlideShare). Still, that didn't stop Khan Academy from eventually seeking patents on its apparently Victor-inspired Methods and Systems for Learning Computer Programming and GitHub-inspired Systems and Methods for Social Programming, applications for which were quietly disclosed by the USPTO earlier this year. Silicon Valley legal powerhouse Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, which provides a pro bono team of 20+ to assist billionaire-backed Khan Academy with its legal needs, filed provisional patent applications for KA in August 2013 — provisional applications can be filed up to 12 months following an inventor's public disclosure of the invention — giving it another 12 months before formal claims had to be filed (KA's non-provisional applications were filed in August 2014).
And I just donated to you fuckers.
It's most likely for a defensive purpose and something that the legal firm advised doing.
Those who do not learn from commit history are doomed to regress it.
I'll believe that when they (a) join OIN or something equivalent or (b) grant a free license to those behaving in a civilized manner (developing free software, not suing around for patents, etc).
Up to then I'll consider them borderline trolls, regardless of whether "the lawyers told them to do so" (what a lame excuse, FFS!).
I've just patented responding to posts.
Khaaaaaaaaaan!
W3Schools.com had this since at least 2010 - see http://www.w3schools.com/js/tryit.asp?filename=tryjs_myfirst - looks like the first picture in the patent application.
Is it customary for the USPTO to hold a major press event for every application they receive but in the case of Khan Academy they just added them to their publicly searchable database?
How can you patent course material? I could see copyright, but a patent?
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
I have always seen Khan Academy as a great example of what one person can do for education (yes I know it's a small team, or was?).
Then a billionaire, who has a history of educational views that don't exactly jive with fairness or logic, swoops in to help an already successful team which is now patenting it's methods?
It was already fishy to me and NOW THIS? WOW
"A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer" or the equivalent thereof scares the shit out of the billionaires because they want it to be exclusive to their kids.
I used to like them, now fuck them all to hell
In particular, considering they specialize in online courses, how can they patent "learning the thing that other people already did which is why we even exist and you're reading about it"?
Given the large number of abstract software patents that have been thrown out lately given the last Supreme Court decision on the matter if this patent gets anywhere it hints at corruption.
When it announced its brand new Computer Science platform in August 2012, Khan Academy explained it drew inspiration from both Bret Victor and GitHub (SlideShare). Still, that didn't stop Khan Academy from eventually seeking patents on its apparently Victor-inspired Methods and Systems for Learning Computer Programming and GitHub-inspired Systems and Methods for Social Programming,
Well, yes, most improvements in technologies draw inspiration from earlier technologies. The Tesla Roadster draws inspiration from the Model T. The Boeing Dreamliner draws inspiration from the P51 Mustang. Windows 10 draws inspiration from Microsoft Bob. The question isn't "was this inspired by something earlier" but "is this obvious in view of what came earlier?"
... applications for which were quietly disclosed by the USPTO earlier this year.
Also known as "published normally". Patent applications are typically published 18 months after their filing date. There's nothing "quiet" about it - it's included in the official gazette each Tuesday and Google Patents (among other services) take an image of it. But it's a nice attempt by Subby to imply that there's a dark conspiracy here.
Silicon Valley legal powerhouse Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, which provides a pro bono team of 20+ to assist billionaire-backed Khan Academy with its legal needs,
This appears to be a reference to the 20-person pro bono committee at Wilson Sonsini. Most law firms have pro bono committees of partners in charge of selecting and approving pro bono work, which is then taken on by junior associates. The committee itself doesn't do the work, so no, they didn't have a "pro bono team of 20+". They probably had a supervising attorney, a patent agent, and a paralegal, donating probably around 50 hours total for the two applications.
... filed provisional patent applications for KA in August 2013 — provisional applications can be filed up to 12 months following an inventor's public disclosure of the invention
They can also be filed before the public disclosure. They're inexpensive placeholders that you can file without paying fees for search and examination. If you don't file the nonprovisional application within one year, the provisional expires and disappears forever, so they're particularly a good thing for startups who don't have revenue yet.
— giving it another 12 months before formal claims had to be filed (KA's non-provisional applications were filed in August 2014).
Then wouldn't that have been the bigger part of the story to focus on, Subby? The non-provisional applications with legal claims that people can look at to determine whether the patent is valid or invalid?
Just getting their ammunition ready for war with the federation.
You speculating defensive is no different than someone else speculating offense. History is not on your side. You gave your opinion in your first post. Repeating the same thing over and over makes you look like either an idiot or a shill.
If they don't patent this, someone else will. Because we now have a "first to file" system, where prior art doesn't matter if the prior artist never patented it. And no, educational methods should not be patentable, but if this patent is granted then they did the right thing. Cheaper to file a patent than defend against a troll later on.
Of course that doesn't mean the patent should be unopposed and shouldn't be given out to the public for free. Khan Academy has no business sealing up their methods as proprietary. But there are no white knights in the patent system. You can't not play the game, you can only lose it to the trolls.
I sometimes ask revealing, often ignorant-seeming questions. Maybe they're harder to answer than you think.
Title says it all.
So they can henceforth use their patents to fuck any better educational sites that pop up. Nice.
Guess their massive grants from billionaires to do good for humanity just weren't enough for them.
Asswipes.
You mean like slashdot?
I did some work on algorithm animation as a means of learning programming at uni back in 2003. There were already loads of software which does what this claim describes, including interactive online ones. Some dated back years and years.
Example: http://cs.joensuu.fi/jeliot/
I'm pretty sure this covers the description of taking machine readable input (Java code in this case), executing it and showing the changes in a visual component. It's over the web, and let's you change the input interactively without restating the software.
The $cientologists vigorously enforce the copyrights on their course material and they know^Wabuse the legal system. If they had been able to patent their courses, they would have. Khan Academy may not be awarded the patent based on precedent.
Eternity: will that be smoking, or non-smoking? I Corinthians 6:9-10
Kaaaaaaahhhhhn!
Khhhhhaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnn!
Like many other technology companies, Khan Academy applies for patents in the normal course of business to protect ourselves and our learners from litigation. We do not profit from our patents nor use them to stifle innovation.
As a not-for-profit organization, and to meet our commitment to using patents for good, we have adopted the Innovator’s Patent Agreement and made it an integral part of our company culture. By signing IPAs with our employees, we safeguard innovation and pledge not to use their patents in offensive litigation without their permission, while retaining the ability to protect ourselves against any company that initiates a lawsuit against us.
I make this claim. I can get virtually all of Khan Academy's students to abandom the platform for something far, far better, irrespective of whether Gates funds them inperpetuity and irrespective of whether 3rd parties require their students to use Khan (or any other platform like it) and even irrespective of how many contributors Khan recruits. I can do this with zero 'angel' funding and cannot be sued out of existence by lawyers nor trolled out of existence by paid agents of Gates or Khan or anyone else. I cannot stop copycats, but they cannot stop me, and what's more, the more they copy, the healthier I become. I know these are big claims. I never bring up unreleased work (aka vaporware) for all the obvious reasons but seeing this story got my goat. I promise you that this is true. This story doesn't effect any time tables for me but it does permanently remove any possibility I'd collaborate with Khan or even open an email from them. Take it for what it's worth, but Khan Academy is fucked.
Whether a picture is worth a thousand words or not depends entirely on the picture. What we now suffer is proliferation of vendor-specific inexpressive and ephemeral icons created by folks who assume their set is the only one you'll be interested in using. The result is that we are returning to the state of Ancient Egypt, which finished up with numerous cases of multiple pictograms with common meanings, imposing huge strain on the recipient of communications.