[Ecommerce] Company claims patent over online testing

Wed Mar 31 17:43:11 2004

You might all be interested in this reply to this story...
unsuprisingly, there appears to be much prior art:

http://politechbot.com/pipermail/politech/2004-March/000563.html

Joe

On Wed, 31 Mar 2004, Jeff Williams wrote:

> Date: Wed, 31 Mar 2004 12:17:30 -0800
> From: Jeff Williams <jwkckid1@ix.netcom.com>
> To: James Love <james.love@cptech.org>
> Cc: ecommerce <ecommerce@venice.essential.org>, jhall@sims.berkeley.edu,
>      joehall@pobox.com, dave@farber.net
> Subject: Re: [Ecommerce] Company claims patent over online testing
>
> Jamie and all,
>
>   Yes this was reported yesterday on Slashdot.  But thank you for again
> spreading the information Jamie..
>
>   Indeed this sort of silly nonsense is beyond cognitive reasoning
> IMHO...
>
> James Love wrote:
>
> > -------- Original Message --------
> > Subject: chron of higher ed: patent on online testing
> > Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2004 07:36:36 -0800 (PST)
> > From: Joseph Lorenzo Hall <jhall@sims.berkeley.edu>
> > Reply-To: joehall@pobox.com
> > To: Dave Farber <dave@farber.net>, Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>
> >
> > >From the issue dated March 26, 2004
> >
> > <http://chronicle.com/weekly/v50/i29/29a03101.htm>
> >
> > ## Company Claims to Own Online Testing
> >
> > A patent holder demands fees from colleges that use a common tool
> > of distance education
> >
> > ### By DAN CARNEVALE
> >
> > When Regis University put some of its courses online in the 1990s,
> > officials there figured that it was a no-brainer to administer tests
> > online as well. And so they did.
> >
> > Last fall, however, they received a threatening letter from Test
> > Central Inc., which holds a patent on various types of online
> > testing. The company claims that Regis and other colleges may be
> > infringing on that patent and, if so, must pay thousands of dollars
> > to continue offering tests online.
> >
> > Ellen K. Waterman, director of distance learning at the Denver
> > institution, says she was stunned to see that somebody claimed to own
> > the rights to online testing itself. The patent claims made by Test
> > Central are so broad, she says, that they seem to cover any type of
> > testing in cyberspace.
> >
> > "It's very, very general," she says. "If you can patent anything that
> > people do on the Web, we are not protected at all."
> >
> > But Test Central officials see things differently. They say that the
> > patent does not necessarily cover all online testing and that they
> > are entitled to be paid fees by any college conducting testing that
> > is covered. And if they suspect a college of infringing on the
> > patent, they may take the college to court.
> >
> > "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 and of its parent
> > company, Test.com. "Our concern is that other people are profiting at
> > our expense."
> >
> > Some of the colleges that received letters from Test Central, based
> > in Cleveland, have not yet decided how to respond, while others -- as
> > well as companies that also provide online-testing tools to colleges
> > -- plan to fight back.
> >
> > Test Central's letters went out to an undetermined number of colleges
> > soon after another technology company, Acacia, put colleges and
> > businesses on notice that they might be violating its patent on
> > streaming video technology ( The Chronicle, November 7).
> >
> > Together, the two companies' claims have led college officials to
> > worry that many more companies could make their own claims to
> > ownership of Internet processes. Such claims, the educators say,
> > could threaten the viability of distance-education programs.
> >
> > "This is like Pandora's box has opened," says Sally Johnstone,
> > executive director of the Western Cooperative for Educational
> > Telecommunications of the Western Interstate Commission for Higher
> > Education, or WICHE. "Everybody thinks they can get a piece of the
> > action because they had an idea at one time."
> >
> > [...]
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > Joseph Lorenzo Hall,                      SIMS PhD Student; UC Berkeley.
> > [web:<http://pobox.com/~joehall/>, blog:<http://pobox.com/~joehall/nqb>]
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Ecommerce mailing list
> > Ecommerce@lists.essential.org
> > http://lists.essential.org/mailman/listinfo/ecommerce
>
> Regards,
>
> --
> Jeffrey A. Williams
> Spokesman for INEGroup LLA. - (Over 134k members/stakeholders strong!)
> "Be precise in the use of words and expect precision from others" -
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>
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>

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Joseph Lorenzo Hall,                      SIMS PhD Student; UC Berkeley.
[web:<http://pobox.com/~joehall/>, blog:<http://pobox.com/~joehall/nqb>]

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