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Khan Academy Seeks Patent On Education A/B Testing
theodp writes: The Education Revolution will be patented. USPTO records show that Khan Academy is seeking a patent for Systems and Methods for Split Testing Educational Videos. From the patent application: "Systems and methods are provided for comparing different videos pertaining to a topic. Two different versions of an educational video may be compared using split comparison testing. A set of questions may be provided along with each video about the topic taught in the video. Users may view one of the videos and answer the questions. Data about the user responses may be aggregated and used to determine which video more effectively conveys information to the viewer based on the question responses." Now it's up to the USPTO to decide if something like the test and control studies conducted 40+ years ago (pdf) by the PLATO system to measure the effectiveness of different teaching methods would count as prior art. In response to an earlier post on Khan Academy's pending patents on learning computer programming and 'social programming,' Slashdot user Khan Academy said that the nonprofit is using patents for good, so not to worry.
khaaaaaan!
Patents should be granted and immediately sold exclusively to the government, who can then open them up for everyone to use. A good example of how this works is the photography patent which was sold by Louis Daguerre to the French government, who opened the technology to the world. In this way we fix all the greatest problems with patents in one swoop. No more patent portfolios that create barriers to entry for innovative new startups, no more frivolous patent lawsuits about square looking smartphones, no more chilling effects based on the threat of being sued, no more protection money (aka licensing/royalties) rackets, and if the government must buy all potential patents then there is a balance between income (from patent examination fees) and expenditure (from buying the granted patents) so that the worst excesses of the current system are automatically held in check.