Blackboard patent to be reexamined
According to Groklaw, the US Patent and Trademark Office will be examining Blackboard’s e-learning patent and all 44 associated claims, due to requests from the Software Freedom Law Center. The request was filed on behalf of Sakai, Moodle, and ATutor, open source educational products.
Kevin Hermansen said,
September 21, 2007 @ 5:34 pm
A free-access site launched last September (www.wikipatents.com) is working towards resolving patent infringement issues like this one before they ever arise. It allows users (now over 30,000 strong) to review issued patents and pending patent applications and to make valuable comments concerning the validity and scope of the inventor’s claims. These reviews will help clarify who owns what, so that patent applications that don’t deserve to be granted won’t be granted, thus reducing the number of expensive and economy-cripping infringement lawsuits we see today. The hope is that the interested public can provide information (i.e. related prior art, related claims, etc.) that patent examiners can use as a resource when examining future patent applications. The site can be accessed at http://www.wikipatents.com.