http://mfeldstein.com/an_analysis_of_the_latest_blackboard_patent_faq/ What Michael Feldstein is Learning About Online Learning...Online Wed, 08 Sep 2010 00:24:09 +0000 hourly 1 http://mfeldstein.com/an_analysis_of_the_latest_blackboard_patent_faq/#comment-565 Scott Leslie Mon, 04 Sep 2006 09:01:42 +0000 http://733893631#comment-565 I know you've seen these before, but what I found striking about looking at the 477 pages of supporting correspondence documents between the patent office and BB (cf. http://tinyurl.com/fz39e) was how incredibly insular the patent office was in looking for prior art. My read of the 477 pages is that in essence they searched their internal database of previously issued patents for *exact* matches to certain terms in the current filing, and did the same for a few IEEE publications, and that's about it! It's not surprising - I can't imagine the patent examiners are at all subject matter experts on the intricacies of CMS. But it's just laughable to think that a search such as this is enough to grant with any assurance the originality of the claims. Proof, I guess, that the USPTO does the bare minimum and then expects the courts to sort it out. I know you’ve seen these before, but what I found striking about looking at the 477 pages of supporting correspondence documents between the patent office and BB (cf. http://tinyurl.com/fz39e) was how incredibly insular the patent office was in looking for prior art. My read of the 477 pages is that in essence they searched their internal database of previously issued patents for *exact* matches to certain terms in the current filing, and did the same for a few IEEE publications, and that’s about it! It’s not surprising – I can’t imagine the patent examiners are at all subject matter experts on the intricacies of CMS. But it’s just laughable to think that a search such as this is enough to grant with any assurance the originality of the claims. Proof, I guess, that the USPTO does the bare minimum and then expects the courts to sort it out.

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