Re-exam request on Blackboard's '138 patent
The Software Freedom Law Center (representing projects Sakai, Moodle and ATutor) said Nov. 30 that it has asked the U.S. Patent Office to re-examine US patent 6,988,138 granted to education software company Blackboard.
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The San Jose Mercury News reported: According to a report from Bloomberg News, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office made public on Nov. 30 a patent application Apple filed in August for an iPod-mobile-phone combo. [meaning that the USPTO published Apple's filed patent application.
Separately, MacWorld reported: Apple has secured control of a critical patent that covers the downloading of music and video to a computer along with the capability of playing that content on another device, such as an iPod.
The company has reached an out-of-court settlement that Michael Starkweather, the lawyer responsible for the original patent holder's case, believes will affect "the future of the whole mobile phone, iPod and PDA industry. That's the billion dollar patent."
The case began in June 2005. During the litigation, Apple was accused of using the patent without permission, before an out-of-court settlement was reached, terms of which remain undisclosed.
Starkweather believes "Apple will eventually be after every phone company, film maker, computer maker and video producer to pay royalties on every download of not just music but also movies and videos."
If the patent had landed in the hands of Apple's competitors, it would have seriously threatened Apple.
Starkweather wrote the patent in 1996 for David Contois of Contois Music Technology. The concept consisted of a desktop computer holding multiple songs with an interface allowing a user to select three songs and play them on an electric grand piano. Starkweather saw the broader value and broke the patent into three elements: remote music storage, selection of music to download, and playing music on a music device.
Starkweather realised that downloading movies was an obvious variation to downloading music. It was data manipulated in the same way. "Sometimes it's easy to break an invention down to its key components," Starkweather says. "That's why patent writing is an art, not a science, and requires creativity."
Starkweather began his career as a Patent Examiner in the US Patent and Trademark Office, then served as in-house Patent Attorney for several major corporations, including Xerox, AT&T/NCR, Micron Semiconductor and IBM.
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The San Jose Mercury News reported: According to a report from Bloomberg News, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office made public on Nov. 30 a patent application Apple filed in August for an iPod-mobile-phone combo. [meaning that the USPTO published Apple's filed patent application.
Separately, MacWorld reported: Apple has secured control of a critical patent that covers the downloading of music and video to a computer along with the capability of playing that content on another device, such as an iPod.
The company has reached an out-of-court settlement that Michael Starkweather, the lawyer responsible for the original patent holder's case, believes will affect "the future of the whole mobile phone, iPod and PDA industry. That's the billion dollar patent."
The case began in June 2005. During the litigation, Apple was accused of using the patent without permission, before an out-of-court settlement was reached, terms of which remain undisclosed.
Starkweather believes "Apple will eventually be after every phone company, film maker, computer maker and video producer to pay royalties on every download of not just music but also movies and videos."
If the patent had landed in the hands of Apple's competitors, it would have seriously threatened Apple.
Starkweather wrote the patent in 1996 for David Contois of Contois Music Technology. The concept consisted of a desktop computer holding multiple songs with an interface allowing a user to select three songs and play them on an electric grand piano. Starkweather saw the broader value and broke the patent into three elements: remote music storage, selection of music to download, and playing music on a music device.
Starkweather realised that downloading movies was an obvious variation to downloading music. It was data manipulated in the same way. "Sometimes it's easy to break an invention down to its key components," Starkweather says. "That's why patent writing is an art, not a science, and requires creativity."
Starkweather began his career as a Patent Examiner in the US Patent and Trademark Office, then served as in-house Patent Attorney for several major corporations, including Xerox, AT&T/NCR, Micron Semiconductor and IBM.
posted by Lawrence B. Ebert at 5:32 AM
1 Comments:
The following URL
http://assignments.uspto.gov/assignments/q?db=pat&qt=pat&reel=&frame=&pat=5864868&pub=&asnr=&asnri=&asne=&asnei=&asns
indicates the history for the patent.
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