What is a 'stupid patent' that a language teacher has faced?

by Alexandr Podvalny

The Electronic Frontier Foundation and the language teacher set up tags for companies that have patents on 'language lessons' that have been afflicting language teachers for many years and are working on problem solving.

With EFF's Help, Language Teacher Responds to Ridiculous Patent Threat | Electronic Frontier Foundation
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/07/effs-help-language-teacher-responds-ridiculous-patent-threat

It is said that there are over 6,500 languages ​​in the world, but these have been studied for thousands of years. There are a lot of people studying languages ​​in modern times, language teachers teaching foreign languages, but language teachers in particular have fallen into the situation that you can not do lessons as you think with a patent that seems stupid . This "foolish patent" is a patent on "recorded language lessons" owned by Hodder & Stoughton , a leading UK publisher. With this patent as a shield, Hodder & Stoughton is able to stop language lessons provided online.

Michael Elefselliu, who works as a language teacher in the UK, runs a free language learning site called Language Transfer and provided lessons with movies or audio files uploaded to Sound Cloud and YouTube .

Free Language Courses | Language Transfer

But one time, Mr. Elefseliu receives a letter (PDF) from Hodder & Stoughto. In the letter, the online lesson of Language Transfer was stated to stop offering the lesson as it conflicts with the patent " Language teaching system " owned by Hodder & Stoughto.

The electronic frontier foundation said, "Frankly speaking, the patent office needs to do a better job," as this patent is about applicable to all language lessons using recorded data, the Electronic Frontier Foundation says tough words I'm casting it.

And to help those suffering from Hodder & Stoughto 's patents like Mr. Elefseliu, the Electronic Frontier Foundation sent a (PDF) response to Hodder & Stoughto. Among the responses, the Electronic Frontier Foundation suggests that the US Pat. No. 6,677,358 patent (the '358 patent) is based on a past case that "abstract ideas are not subject to patent protection simply by being implemented in conventional technology or general technology" Explain that it is obviously invalid.

by Helloquence

Also, the BBC documentary " The Language Master " is published in 1997 three years or more before the filing of a patent application by Hodder & Stoughto, in which systems similar to Hodder & Stoughto's patents are appearing Therefore, "It can also insist on invalidating a patent because of the existence of prior art," he says.

In addition, Hodder & Stoughto not only requested Mr. Elefseliu to stop offering online language lessons in the United States, but also asked to abandon the publication plan of the book on language instruction, which obviously is abusing the patent system The Electronic Frontier Foundation points out.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation says, "The copyright allows authors to protect certain expressions, but can not protect ideas.In language teaching, someone has copyright on their lessons and recording tapes Although it is possible to do, you can not have copyright on the idea of ​​"teaching the second language." Abstract ideas can not be patented, and such things are not fundamental to building blocks of knowledge It is one, it is not subject to ownership, rather it is necessary for creators and inventors to be able to utilize abstract ideas in the future ".