I recently spoke to Subba, a national patents examiner with IP Australia’s Oppositions Hearing & Legislation branch. He’s provided me with more detailed information on the Blackboard patent, applications, and how these may be legally challenged.
Patent application 2005203324 is a divisional application with a parent patent 780938 (granted and sealed). It was open for inspection (OPI) to the public on 21st August 2005. To properly address this patent application, it would be necessary to have the parent patent re-examined. The parent patent 780938 was granted in Australia and sealed in April 2005. This is the patent equivalent to the one recently announced by Blackboard as being granted in the USA.
To have this patent re-examined, a third-party re-examination must be requested from IP Australia, together with documentation that the patent claim was not novel or inventive. The cost of a re-examination is A$1300. I’m confident that we can raise this amount and challenge the validity of the patent in Australia.
Blackboard’s other four patents (2003237918, 2003263854, 2003263855, and 2004265995) are all conventional WIPO (International) patent applications claiming US Priority. They are all currently open for public inspection, which means that oppositions to these applications must be lodged immediately.
Under Section 27 of IP Australia’s National Examination Manual, opposition is performed as stated in a previous post – by informing the Commissioner that the patent application is not novel or inventive, together with the appropriate documentation to demonstrate prior art. There is no cost for oppositions to patents that have not yet been granted lodged in this manner.
