Cainntear wrote:Not a surprise... particularly given that he uses the MT name on his site and produces courses primarily in languages that directly compete with MT. And then to compound it all, he responds to the lawyer's letter by saying that his course is better than MT. Not clever.
That's likely a very real issue. The sites FAQ needs a rewrite...
Cainntear wrote:The main thing with the patent is the use of the pause button, and however daft that sounds, well, no course did it before them, so they can argue that it's "non-obvious". My understanding is that in the US, it's no defense to say that the patent's valueless and the patent will be applied regardless -- if you want to get the patent struck down, you have to start your own action to have the patent declared invalid, and that's a costly process.
Not quite true, you can start this as defendant in a patent infringement claim. Likely in parallel to a patent office review request.
My personal opinion is that this will never go to court because it isn't in the interest of either party.