Online Testing? Patented!
from the and-so-it-goes dept
Someone submitted this story last week, but it was only available behind a subscription wall at the time. Politech has now published the important points of this story, talking about a company that claims to own patents covering online testing. It's yet another situation of a small company claiming patents on something completely obvious (with plenty of prior art) and claiming that somehow because something is "online", it's patentable. The universities being threatened seem likely to fight back, so hopefully this patent will be invalidated. However, in the meantime, it's a pain for those universities involved who are simply doing the most obvious thing: putting tests online. It's amazing that the patent holder can claim with a straight face that these universities are "profiting at our expense."
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Dear Sir ...
Please kindly send your check payable to me soonest.
Regards,
Some dumb lawyer
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Online Testing
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Carefully Worded Claim
"There are many organizations out there who have made a ton of money off of the technology that we've got a patent on," says James J. Posch, chief executive officer of Test Central
He doesn't say that anyone stole his company's technology. He basically says that "many" organizations came up with the same idea, and he happens to have the patent on the idea. He's admitting that the idea is not "non-obvious" (since many other organizations had the same idea), and therefore blows his patent claim.
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Idea for techdirt
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