CompTIA v. TroyTec Settled; Company Pulls CompTIA-Related Products from Site, Denies Wrongdoing
12/19/2001 -- The Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA) has settled its second lawsuit this year against a test prep company it accused of violating the organization's copyright by allegedly selling study materials containing questions that appear on CompTIA exams.
The organization filed suit against Troy Technologies USA and its owner, Garry L. Neale, in the United States District Court, Western District of Texas on Nov. 28 (The Computing Tech v. Neale 5:01cv1078). The case was settled earlier this month.
CertCities.com was unable to obtain the complete terms of the settlement before press time. We attempted to reach both sides for comment on this story. Neale, who earlier this year dissolved his Troy Technologies USA DBA and formed TestKiller LTD, did not respond to our request for comment, but did release the following statement on the Troytec.com Web site, in which the company denies any wrongdoing:
Troy Technologies USA ("Troy") has recently settled a dispute with The Computing Technology Industry Association, Inc. ("CompTIA") regarding certain study guides that Troy previously sold pertaining to various certification exams offered by CompTIA. Specifically, CompTIA alleged that Troy's study guides for CompTIA's A+ Hardware, A+ Operating Systems, Network+, and I-Net+ certification exams violated CompTIA's copyright and trademark rights, among other rights. Without admitting any wrongdoing and, in the interest of ending the dispute and avoiding controversy, Troy has agreed to cease distributing any study guides directed to CompTIA's exams pursuant to a stipulated court order. Accordingly, Troy will no longer offer any study guides for any of the CompTIA certification exams.
CompTIA was unable to respond to our request for comment by press time, but a spokesperson said that the company should be prepared to make an official statement shortly.
It is unknown whether the names of those who bought the study guides were given to CompTIA as part of the settlement terms. This was a condition of the settlement in CompTIA's suit against Keen Interactive's Cheet-Sheets.com, which was settled earlier this fall (click here for story). CompTIA posted a statement regarding its motives behind this settlement condition on its Web site.
The Cheet-Sheets.com site went down a few weeks after its settlement was reached, and has yet to go back online. CertCities.com has been unable to verify whether the company has gone out of business or if the site is down for other reasons, like technical issues.
CertCities.com will bring you more on this story as it develops. -B.N.
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There are 104  user Comments for “CompTIA v. TroyTec Settled; Company Pulls CompTIA-Related Products from Site, Denies Wrongdoing”
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| 1/15/02: Anonymous from Pasadena, Ca says: |
Greetings all. Prior to starting my company, Hi-Tech Guru, Inc. (www.hitechguru.com), I worked as a trainer for several years teaching mostly authorized CompTIA and Microsoft certification courses at CTECs. I have taken MANY exams over the years on the road to receiving my certifications which include MCSD, MCSE, MCT, MCPI,A+, NET+, and CCNA. I can tell you that when a student showed me the IIS 4.0 Troy guide, I was SHOCKED!!! It contained every question I could recall from the exam. As time went by I had the chance to see a few others and was sickened to find that one of my fellow instructors had even used the Troy guide to pass his exams (which would explain why I was always being taken aside to explain subnetting each time he had to teach Internetworking with MS TCP/IP and NT 4.0.) I have heard of people who couldn't create a desktop shortcut passing professional exams using these guides, and I feel the value of an A+ certification will go back up after this settlement. Now for Microsoft and Cisco to get in the mix. |
| 1/16/02: jtmh from texas says: |
I have read all four pages, and can say one thing. I do not believe the tests teach real world situations, nor that they test such. One of the things my instructor taught me, and I still believe it, is that knowing the answer isn't as important as knowing where to find it. If a person is intelligent, they'll get the resources necessary to find the answer to their dilemma and solve the bloody problem. At the moment, I am trying to break into the IT field, and currently taking MCSE 2k. Do I believe that it is the holy grail, and that I'll be able to walk into a new job with a whole lot of money to boot--NO! What I do believe is that a certification will get my foot in the door, and enable me to change into the career field I want to be in. When being interviewed, that is the time to do one thing--SELL YOURSELF!!! You can be a knowledgeable person and not be qualified to handle the situations that come your way. I've been in the customer service industry for 14 years, and I've seen people with college degrees not know how to handle even the simplest situations. It's not the knowlege base or the certs, it's how you apply that knowledge and information. A previous poster mentioned that he had to explain a question to a tester, as the answers made no sense, in regards to the question. I had that same experience, so my faith in the companies who put the tests together is lacking. If a test-prep, Troy, Transcendor, helps me to take a test that has been proven to contain faults, then so what? Does that mean that I am less of a person for "taking the easy road out?" I don't think so. What it means, is that I took the necessary steps to have the information required to pass. Applying that knowledge and information on the job will be a totally different situation. A friend of mine who is MCSE 2k certified, told me the company he works for spent 1.3 mil to upgrade from NT 4.0 to 2k in just a test environment, and it bombed! So don't talk to me about the tests being right or the answer to everything. I just don't buy it. |
| 1/26/02: anon from Redmond, WA says: |
If Microsoft et al were serious about stopping stuff like Troytech and cheet-sheets, they don't need to use the court system. Their tests a) don't scramble the questions b) use the same names again and again c) rely on a small set of sample tests. If these folks want a good certification process, they ought to just increase the bank of questions they use. If they made the bank of questions large enough, they could go ahead and just publish the dang thing(or a hefty subset of it). One thing that I thought was cool, microsoft is starting to make some of their questions more "real world"(using drag and drop stuff similar to their actual product). The problem is that some folks have always gotten their certs by using stuff they paid money for. Hell, I've used transcender for some stuff. I learned a lot more from Transcender than I did from the Microsoft materials. If folks like Microsoft are really concerned with a) creating a pool of trained people b) having an accurate certification They need to quit viewing this as a revenue source. |
| 2/20/02: edward from new jersey says: |
i think that there is nothing wrong with troytecs, taking cert tests can be a very stressfull thing and the cost of the exams only adds to that, transcenders and troytechs are good for giving you the confidence to know that you are ready to take the test |
| 2/20/02: Anonymous says: |
to all the people who say that certs are worthless, i am friends with a few certless people who really know their shit in nt and unix and they cant get an interview because they have nothing to put on a resume as they have obtained their experience by playing around at home, certs are a resume filler and a door opener, for all you people screaming about the paper cert getters... your anger is missplaced, you should direct it at the unqualified people that i always hear about who fall into these it jobs with no credentials at all... |
| 2/21/02: Sifis B from windsor says: |
I am proud to say i have my A+, Net+ Unix(CUSA) and Novel(CNA) certs. I am currently working on my MCSE and Cisco certs. It is my belief that TroyTec and other such compainies selling braindumps are UNJUSTLY being attacked by people who think these 'dumps' are used by cheaters as a way to cheat & undeservadly pass cert tests. There is NO way anyone can pass a cert test relying solely on these 'dumps'. In my experience, these dumps have helped me to iron out any last minute confusion I might have on a topic, or even tell me what topics to place more focus on in my studies. I don't consider this cheating. It would serve these braindumps better if they were referred to as braintools (corny i know). PEACE |
| 2/27/02: Albeecha from Arkansas says: |
Why does this subject even matter? The certification reputation is already damaged by the mass push to get them. They will never recover from all the contraversy that is surrounding them. At the most you might get an entry level position with a company based on certifications alone. This is when the Paper People start learning if they are in fact capable and lucky enough to have a IT Veteran teach them. |
| 3/25/02: Anonymous says: |
An actual exam question I saw on the professional exam, Randy notices his processor time in taskmgr is 99% what should he do? The answer according to microsoft? Install a second processor. ??? What, tape it to the other one and sing a song? Even microsoft give out practice exam questions along with their offical course material and on their website. I can't see how anyone can use troytec's or any form of Q&A "cheatsheets" solely to pass MCSE2000 exams. But they certainly will give some insight into the vagaries of microsoft exam questioning. |
| 4/10/02: Paul from Virginia says: |
I know a lot of people that used troytec once and that was the last time because they failed their test. I looked at one of them and didn't like the material. |
| 4/10/02: Paul from Virginia says: |
I know a lot of people that used troytec once and that was the last time because they failed their test. I looked at one of them and didn't like the material. |
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