It'd have to be a patent on a pencil used for attendance data.
More seriously, any evidence for the use of wireless links in education would be useful - if you know of a specific case where wireless networking was used, with or without electronic attendance data, this would help prevent the patent owners from claiming infringements.
-----Original Message-----
From: John Munro
To: seul-edu@seul.org
Sent: 10/24/01 3:19 PM
Subject: Re: [seul-edu] Patent abuse...
The validity, reasonableness, rightness of this patent is beyond (my)
belief.
Isn't there a sanction for patent fraud?
The concepts mentioned in the patent have been widely used in a
multitude of applications for 25 years.
Ethernet, collision-detection, random-delay retransmission, radio
communication in educational institutions...
Why not patents on a pencil???
This is really discouraging.
At 02:34 PM 10/24/01, you wrote:
WITHOUT PREJUDICE
Hi
The world-wide patent equivalent to below is being used in the UK to
stop educational institutions from using wireless networks to collect
attendance data or to access it for reporting purposes. One education
authority in the UK has settled out of court to allow it to continue
using its wireless network infrastructure. We believe that this patent
is not applicable on systems that use generic networking technology and
PCs, but we need something to show to the lawyers.
We would be interested in any evidence of prior electronic registration
data systems, in particular those that involved a wireless data transfer
at some point in the process e.g. a point ot point microwave link or
used standard network protocols (TCP/IP, IPX) or applications (telnet ,
ftp, http). Of greatest interest are systems that can be shown to be in
use before 1993, but also anything that is well established is useful.
It seems likely the late addition of the world patent is a possible
moneyspinner for a company whose primary product has been outclassed by
standard PC based apps.
All help appreciated.
Regards
Chris Puttick
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