In general, I am a fan of the IMS. I believe that we need interoperability standards in education, and I think that the IMS’s recent work such as the released Common Cartridge standard, the in-progress Enterprise Services v2 (now called Learning Information Services, or LIS) and Learning Tool Interoperability standards, and the foundational requirements work […]
Blackboard and Desire2Learn Fight Over Venue for Next Round
*Sigh.* At some point I hope the world–and the Blackboard case–will slow down enough so that I’ll actually have time to blog about something else. Here’s the latest from D2L’s patent blog: April, 2008 – Matthew Small, Blackboard’s Chief Legal Officer: “Certainly we believe the reexamination process is a healthy process. It serves to generally […]
An Update on Blackboard Calling Desire2Learn Customers
A while ago, I noted D2L’s claim that Blackboard General Counsel Matt Small (whose title either is going to be changed or has already been changed to “Chief Business Officer”) was calling D2L customers and encouraging them to switch over. I requested that readers contact me with any information that they have. I got a […]
I Want More
The EDUCAUSE webinar on edupatents today was very good. (The archived event is available.) James Hilton, University of Virginia’s CIO, did a great job of laying out the fundamental conflict between the academic endeavor and the United States’ obsession with ideas as property–an idea that has infused academia through technology transfer departments among many other […]
Oracle's Work with Fluid on Accessibility
Although I try to maintain separation between e-Literate, which is my personal blog, and my life as an Oracle employee, I don’t mind posting about my employer every now and then when I think that we’re doing good work that my readers might want to know about. And this is something I’m particularly happy about. […]
Blackboard's Response to the USPTO Office Action
In case you haven’t seen it yet, Blackboard has responded to the non-final invalidation of their patent by the USPTO. I’ve only had time to scan it quickly, but here are my preliminary observations. First, Blackboard has added a bunch of new dependent claims, bringing the total up to 57. (There’s a Steve Martin joke […]
What I Want from the EDUCAUSE Seminar on Edupatents
Seb has a good post up raising some questions for the free EDUCAUSE webinar on edupatents tomorrow at 1 PM Eastern time. I’ll add a few of my own (which in some ways are just extensions of Seb’s): What are the various edupatents being litigated in the United States today and what is the potential […]