I've done a little more looking on the MOOC-for-credit high stakes assessment authentication patent situation, and it seems to me that this news story -- http://www.9news.com/rss/story.aspx?storyid=72302 -- combined with the fact that the company involved was able to obtain a European patent -- http://www.google.com/patents/EP1987505A2 -- referencing a U.S. application, but was apparently unable to obtain a U.S. patent for a very similar application -- http://www.google.com/patents/US20070117082 -- which according to http://portal.uspto.gov/pair/PublicPair is still pending.
That application "11/603,258" does not seem to be doing very well in the U.S. per the following transaction history, so there is probably prior art. It would be a good idea to try to look for it anyway, I'd say, but at this point I doubt it is very urgent. 12-05-2012 Date Forwarded to Examiner 12-03-2012 Response after Non-Final Action 12-03-2012 Request for Extension of Time - Granted 06-05-2012 Electronic Review 06-05-2012 Email Notification 06-05-2012 Mail Non-Final Rejection 05-31-2012 Non-Final Rejection 12-28-2011 Date Forwarded to Examiner 12-23-2011 Request for Continued Examination (RCE) 12-28-2011 Disposal for a RCE / CPA / R129 12-23-2011 Workflow - Request for RCE - Begin 06-29-2011 Electronic Review 06-29-2011 Email Notification 06-29-2011 Mail Final Rejection (PTOL - 326) 06-23-2011 Final Rejection 04-28-2011 Date Forwarded to Examiner 03-23-2011 Response after Non-Final Action 03-23-2011 Affidavit(s) (Rule 131 or 132) or Exhibit(s) Received 03-23-2011 Request for Extension of Time - Granted 10-12-2010 Electronic Review 10-12-2010 Email Notification 10-12-2010 Mail Non-Final Rejection 10-06-2010 Non-Final Rejection 09-20-2010 Oath or Declaration Filed (Including Supplemental) 09-21-2010 Date Forwarded to Examiner 09-20-2010 Request for Continued Examination (RCE) 09-21-2010 Disposal for a RCE / CPA / R129 09-20-2010 Request for Extension of Time - Granted 09-20-2010 Workflow - Request for RCE - Begin 05-17-2010 Email Notification 05-17-2010 Mail Advisory Action (PTOL - 303) 05-13-2010 Advisory Action (PTOL-303) 05-11-2010 Affidavit(s) (Rule 131 or 132) or Exhibit(s) Received 05-12-2010 Date Forwarded to Examiner 05-11-2010 Amendment after Final Rejection 03-23-2010 Electronic Review 03-23-2010 Email Notification 03-23-2010 Mail Final Rejection (PTOL - 326) 03-16-2010 Final Rejection 01-26-2010 Date Forwarded to Examiner 12-22-2009 Response after Non-Final Action 12-22-2009 Request for Extension of Time - Granted 06-22-2009 Electronic Review 06-22-2009 Email Notification 06-22-2009 Mail Non-Final Rejection 06-18-2009 Non-Final Rejection 11-21-2006 Information Disclosure Statement considered 10-09-2008 Case Docketed to Examiner in GAU 06-06-2008 Case Docketed to Examiner in GAU 03-29-2008 Case Docketed to Examiner in GAU 10-17-2007 Withdraw Flagged for 5/25 10-15-2007 Flagged for 5/25 05-24-2007 PG-Pub Issue Notification 03-14-2007 IFW TSS Processing by Tech Center Complete 11-21-2006 Reference capture on IDS 11-21-2006 Information Disclosure Statement (IDS) Filed 11-21-2006 Information Disclosure Statement (IDS) Filed 02-05-2007 Application Dispatched from OIPE 02-05-2007 Application Is Now Complete 01-24-2007 Payment of additional filing fee/Preexam 01-24-2007 A statement by one or more inventors satisfying the requirement under 35 USC 115, Oath of the Applic 01-24-2007 Applicant has submitted new drawings to correct Corrected Papers problems 12-14-2006 Notice Mailed--Application Incomplete--Filing Date Assigned 12-05-2006 Cleared by OIPE CSR 11-29-2006 IFW Scan & PACR Auto Security Review 11-21-2006 Initial Exam Team nn On Thu, Feb 21, 2013 at 2:01 PM, James Salsman <[email protected]> wrote: > On Tue, Feb 19, 2013 at 3:03 PM, Sage Ross <[email protected]> > wrote: >>... >> we're shooting to develop the content beginning in June and start >> the course around September, on Coursera. > > Sage, this might be a great opportunity to ask Coursera to open source > their delivery system soon, and if they refuse you might want to > consider a free content open source platform such as Moodle (which has > abundant free hosting) or https://code.google.com/p/course-builder/ or > http://www.sakaiproject.org/ (formerly Stanford CourseWork.) > > Also, I'm not sure if you are familiar with http://www.proctoru.com/ > which Coursera uses with high stakes assessment to enable offering > course credit, but I've done a little looking into the patent > situation around that and I haven't been able to find convincing prior > art, so that may be one particular minefield to be aware of down the > road if you want to eventually offer credit. However, I still think it > is very likely that substantial prior art exists, so you might want to > consider asking a larger number of people to look for it. > > In fact, let me do that here: Hey everyone, please see if you can find > some prior art which would prevent ProctorU from obtaining patent > protection on using a webcam to authenticate a high stakes assessment. _______________________________________________ Education mailing list [email protected] https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/education
