I’ve been thinking lately about the fact that almost none of the prior art listed in the Wikipedia entry was in Blackboard’s patent filing. It’s remarkable, really, since they are legally obligated to list any potential prior art of which they are aware at the time of filing. Failing to do so would constitute fraud. This is just one of several ways in which the application appears to be very sloppy.
I was thinking about this again when I received an email from a colleague pointing out that Prometheus is not yet listed in our prior art documentation effort. And it looks like Prometheus could present a really big legal problem for Blackboard. (more…)