A language learners’ forum

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.

zenmonkey wrote:

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.

Yeah, I see that now. The EFF letter is pretty clear on how things stand. It's great he's got them behind him, as this is well and truly a bullshit patent and it would be great for the community to see that established.

My personal opinion is that this will never go to court because it isn't in the interest of either party.

Yup, which is the sad part. I would love to see it struck down as an invalid patent.

Cainntear wrote:

zenmonkey wrote:

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.

Yeah, I see that now. The EFF letter is pretty clear on how things stand. It's great he's got them behind him, as this is well and truly a bullshit patent and it would be great for the community to see that established.

My personal opinion is that this will never go to court because it isn't in the interest of either party.

Yup, which is the sad part. I would love to see it struck down as an invalid patent.

Yeah, having EFF is sort of like bringing a destroyer class battleship to a knife fight.

My sympathies are completely with Language Transfer, and I hope they prevail.

However, I actually did the original LT course in tandem with MT's German. They weren't just similar ... they were almost identical, right down to the specific vocabulary and the order it was introduced. Even the sentences were the same a majority of the time. LT has since redone the German course, and I think Eleftheriou's style is a massive improvement over Michel Thomas's, but I can see how LT got in trouble.

Ars Technica article on the subject.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/201 ... -eff-says/

The Times article:

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/publ ... -l2djkcpqx