I urge you to support Elliott Masie's war on frivolous LMS Trademarks. Here's what Elliott wrote in his newsletter:
Help! Defend Learning Field from Patent Suit! The learning "patent trolls" are at it again. There is a company called IPLearn that has unfortunately successfully sued over a dozen learning management system - claiming they have invented many of the core elements of technology delivered learning. Sure, they wrote several clever patents that claim to have created much of the field - and, with an understaffed patent office, it was approved - though there were many prior learning and technology implementations. And, their strategy, which has worked, is to sue a company - get the discovery and legal costs up and up, and finally settle for a fee and stock shares. All, without having invented, produced or created anything - other than a few patent apps.
I have worked, without fee, against their efforts several times and now they are at it again. They have brought suits against several major LMS companies - and I am asking Learning TRENDS readers to help gather any manuals, documents or other experiences you have had with these earlier corporate learning systems:
- Registrar,” by Silton-Bookman Systems.
- Learning Organization Information System (LOIS),” by KnowledgeSoft, Inc.
- Etude,” by Gerald Hollingsworth and GPU, Inc.
- Continuous Learning System (CLS),” by AT&T Global Information Solutions International, Inc.
The lawyers defending against the IPLearn suit would love to see any samples of anything that describes the operation or public availability of these systems. For example: user manuals, help files, demonstration videos, brochures, press releases, and actual program disks/CDs.
If you can help, would you send a note to my office at [email protected] and we will contact you back. Many thanks!
While I'm not a trademark expert, and I support people and organizations who truly do create something new and unique, trademarks that aren't deserving hurt our industry and our learners.
