The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has ordered re-examination of the e-learning patent owned by Blackboard Inc. in response to a request from the Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC). "SFLC, provider of pro-bono legal services to protect and advance Free and Open Source Software, had filed the request in November on behalf of Sakai, Moodle, and ATutor, three open source educational software projects. The Patent Office found that prior art cited in SFLC's request raises "a substantial new question of patentability" regarding all 44 claims of Blackboard's patent."
Why are patents bad ? Posted by Cameroon on 27 January 2007
What is so bad about software patents?
Why software patents are bad Posted by Jay on 27 January 2007
Copyright only protects a particular set of code, but patents protect the ideas in the code.
Imagine if somebody had got a patent on the first word processor, nobody else would have been allowed to produce another one.
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