Thanks to Al Essa for discovering Blackboard’s latest FAQ on the patent. I am thrilled that they have now put these statements out in public (as opposed to just whispering them in their clients’ ears privately) because it finally gives us an opportunity to address them head-on. The truth is that their claims about the scope of the patent, while literally true, are highly misleading.
I will wait for Al to post his forthcoming debunking of the FAQ before adding my own 2 cents.
Maybe we should be grateful to Bb for this move to monopolize LMS. It could push many universities to dump the old stye corporate LMS model, which is unfriendly and expensive, and to jump into the Web 2, online, roll your own learning models.
And what would stop Blackboard (or somebody else) from patenting the next thing we do? No, running from this fight would be a big mistake.
I wouldn’t want anyone to step back from the fight. That is what will destroy this corporate strategy to own the Internet (patents, Internet neutrality, DRM, etc.) I am suggesting that the backlash to the Bb move could have the unintended consequence of accelerating the universities’ move away from commericial CMS or LMS.