1EdTech Announces Patent Pledge from Measured Progress for Implementation of the Accessible Portable Item Protocol Standard
Measured Progress shows commitment to the educational assessment community by offering a zero cost reasonable and non-discriminatory license to implementers of the APIP standard.
Lake Mary, USA – 7 November 2013 – The 1EdTech Consortium, the world’s leading educational technology standards setting collaborative, today announced that Measured Progress has agreed to grant a Free Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory Zero Cost (RAND-Z) license to all claims of Measured Progress’s patent #8,303,309 to organizations implementing the 1EdTech Accessible Portable Item Protocol (APIP) standard. The patent, entitled INTEGRATED INTEROPERABLE TOOLS SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR TEST DELIVERY, was issued November 6, 2012 by the U.S. patent office.
The Measured Progress patent was disclosed to the 1EdTech APIP workgroup under the terms of the 1EdTech Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) policy. The 1EdTech IPR policy is designed to help protect users of 1EdTech standards from unforeseen intellectual property claims. The 1EdTech policy encourages discovery and pledging of IP from market participants in order to encourage adoption of open standards.
The Measured Progress license was reviewed for acceptability by the 1EdTech APIP workgroup member organizations via a review and comment period of several months over which several revisions were made to the Measured Progress license based on member input. The Measured Progress patent license is available online and is referenced from within the APIP specification documents available from 1EdTech.
Per the 1EdTech IPR policy, 1EdTech takes no position with respect to the validity of the claims in the patent and/or the license, which is between Measured Progress and those organizations that wish to avail themselves of the license. Nor is there any implication that parties that implement APIP, which is freely available and free to use, or achieve conformance certification to APIP, must agree to the terms of the license.
“1EdTech is pleased that Measured Progress have offered a RAND-Z license to all the claims of its patent,” said Dr. Rob Abel, Chief Executive of 1EdTech. “Leading providers are most likely to have invested heavily in intellectual property that can benefit schools, states and ultimate users of technology. When a leading organization such as Measured Progress pledges its IP to achieve open interoperability, it tends to motivate other participants to do the same and thus create a market where open standards and open innovation become the norm versus the much less innovative alternative of a few dominant platforms.”
“We believe APIP is good for students, assessment programs, and the field of assessment and that the method covered by our patent is the best one for developing an APIP-conformant test delivery system. We are pleased to make the method covered by the patent freely available to anyone and everyone for developing APIP-conformant test delivery systems,” said Measured Progress President and CEO Martin Borg.
About 1EdTech Consortium (1EdTech)
1EdTech is a nonprofit organization that advances technology that can affordably scale and improve educational participation and attainment. 1EdTech members are leading suppliers, institutions and government organizations that are enabling the future of education by collaborating on interoperability and adoption initiatives. 1EdTech sponsors Learning Impact: A global awards program & conference to recognize the impact of innovative technology on educational access, affordability, and quality.