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[alawkat]

removed

[MarkDighton]

Please be advised that this offer to sell PLI's Patent Bar Review Course is in violation of PLI’s intellectual property rights. The computer disks included in the course are transferred only under a license which prevents their resale or transfer under any circumstances. Please pull at least the disks from your sale immediately.

Sincerely,
Mark Dighton, Esq.
Admin. Director, PLI’s Patent Bar Review
mdighton@pli.edu

[superfanny008]

Is it still for sale? I"d be interested. Email at mianx001 (at) gmail (dot) com

[MarkDighton]

You are already under notice that sales of PLI's Patent Bar Review Course in this fashion are in violation of PLI's Intellectual Property rights. I think it would reflect very badly on your character to serve as a member of the Patent Bar if it came out that you were attempting to buy a course in knowing violation of such rights.
Sincerely,
Mark Dighton, Esq.
Admin. Director, PLI's Patent Bar Review

[maka]

HAHA, PLI Sucks...I bought it...worthless.....here's a taste of the Audio CD's...."John White here,....I'm going to talk slowly over the next 20 hours and bore you to death with bad jokes.... when all you really need to do to pass the Patent Bar is to spend a couple days going through the old exams..."

consider yourselves ON NOTICE, that PLI sucks...

PS - the old exams are everywhere...here is one source...and yes FREEEEEEE

http://mypatentbar.com/old-exams/

[maka]

Wait a minute....isn't PLI breaking copyright laws by reproducing exact questions from the PTO's tests to begin with

Calling all software geeks!! There are only a couple hundred questions, all public....lets start an open source software using the same free public info PLI uses... we can make the same software free and publicly accessible.  Thanks for jump starting this idea PLI!!

[MarkDighton]

Unfortunately, this writer is wrong on most (probably all) counts:
PLI generally gets rave reviews (though I guess we have one exception here)… see http://www.pli.edu/patentcenter/patentbarreview/testimonials.asp  …much better than our competitors. Check this Website and others. And we have a great pass rate. Patent law isn’t the most exciting substance, but we do our best to make it easily digestible and even a little bit funny. Most of the jokes DO help you remember the rules.
The questions from old exams are not covered by copyright, since they are publicly released. And those old questions do show up in great numbers on most exams today. But we still think they’re not enough to pass the exam today. They haven’t released an exam since 2003, and there have been some significant changes to what they test and how they test it. We take great pains to make sure that our course teaches to the Exam as it is today. And we draft new questions to reflect questions people see on the Exam. People relying on old Exams (or the MPEP itself) for study will probably always get close to passing, but never quite get there (unless they get lucky, or do some extra study on their own outside of the MPEP and old exams).
I’d just ask people to do their due diligence before they take the Exam.
Mark Dighton, Esq.
Admin. Director, PLI's Patent Bar Review

[Yungin]

Although it's an unsettled question of law whether the "First Sale Doctrine" applies to "software"  the Audio CDs and DVDs are not computer software and the "First Sale Doctrine" should apply.

So what are these threats about the computer disks? Those can be legally resold.  Is Mark Dolt committing a tort in threatening people? unlawful interference with a prospective business relationship? misrepresenting the law? He should be disbarred immediately!!

So the Patware software doesn't include any exam questions beyond whats publicly available? Thanks for that tidbit Mark, I wonder why anyone would want Patware then since the info is all out there.  I've studied the free stuff online and passed the first time - I actually thought it wasn't that bad.  My friends that took PLI said the materials were a waste and they spent too much time on material that wasn't even tested.

Considering the cost of PLI (about 2k)  you could pass the patent bar on the 10th attempt and still save money.  Supposedly, you have a 1 out of 2 chance of passing (and considering how many totally unprepared people take it, if you study one week, your chances are more likely 3 out of 4).  Take my advice, study the free materials, work through the old tests several times and look at the commonly missed questions online (my friends say this info wasn't even in PLI). Even if it takes you two times to pass it, you'll still save well over $1,000.

[Yungin]

Unfortunately Mark is wrong (he should at least admit his legal position is VERY shaky...and mostly a threat

Just because there is a license doesn't mean its enforceable, the law is currently NOT in PLI's favor...

Washington District Court in Vernor v. Autodesk, Inc. (2008) the court followed United States v. Wise,[1] in which films distributed by a studio that were not expected to be returned were deemed sold, and ruled that Autodesk software was sold, and thus eligible for the first-sale doctrine.[2][3]

Federal district courts in California and Texas have issued decisions applying the doctrine of first sale for bundled computer software in Softman v. Adobe (2001) and Novell, Inc. v. CPU Distrib., Inc. (2000) even if the software contains an EULA prohibiting resale. In the Softman case, after purchasing bundled software (a box containing many programs that are also available individually) from Adobe Systems, Softman unbundled it and then resold the component programs. The court ruled that Softman could resell the bundled software, no matter what the EULA stipulates, because Softman had never assented to the EULA. Specifically, the ruling decreed that software purchases be treated as sales transactions, rather than explicit license agreements. In other words, the court ruled that California consumers should have the same rights they would enjoy under existing copyright legislation when buying a CD or a book.

[MarkDighton]

I think I did state quite clearly that there ARE new questions in Patware...questions we've written to reflect what's being tested on the Exam currently. And I'll put our long line of testimonials (http://www.pli.edu/patentcenter/patentbarreview/testimonials.asp) from named individuals from well-regarded schools, firms and corporations up against these anonymous posts any day.
Mark Dighton, Esq.
Admin. Director, Patent Bar Review
PLI

[JSonnabend]

Mark, I am curious, what is on the "computer disks" you mention in your post?

- Jeff

[tvbs01062]

Yeah, that's right!!!