News
August 2, 2006
The USPTO Sucks
Poster: Aron Schatz
Posted on August 2, 2006 at 12:12:15 PM
Blackboard, the people that bought WebCT, has received a patent for their Learning Management System. Blackboard's LMS is exactly the same as any content management system. Prior art be damned! The USPTO will grant any patents that contain the word 'electronic' or 'internet' in them. Get your kicks in now. Hopefully this patent will be struck down soon. WebCT's product was barely even a content management system.
Almost sounds like a filesystem to me.
Quote
In accordance with these and other objects, provided is a system for providing to a community of users access to a plurality of online courses, comprising a plurality of user computers and a server computer in communication with each of the user computers over a network. Each user computer is associated with a user of the system having predefined characteristics indicative of a predetermined role in the system. Each role provides a level of access to data files associated with a course, and a level of control over data files associated with a course. The server computer has means for storing data files associated with a course, means for assigning a level of access to each file, wherein the level of access is associated with the ability of a user to access the file, means for determining an access level of a user requesting access to a file, and means for allowing access to a file associated with a course as a function of the access level of the user.
Almost sounds like a filesystem to me.
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