e-Literate

Present is Prologue

Tag: Desire2Learn

  • The Second Anniversary: Blackboard v. Desire2Learn

    This is a guest post by Jim Farmer

    Two years ago while speaking at the Desire2Learn Users Conference, CEO John Baker learned that Blackboard Inc. accused Desire2Learn of infringing a Blackboard patent. Following a jury’s decision and failed attempts to reach a settlement, the dispute is now headed for appeal at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal District, the Patent Office has yet to rule on the two challenges to parent validity by the Software Freedom Law Center and Desire2Learn, and, according to The Chronicle’s Jeff Young, a new trial looms over the latest version of Desire2Learn’s software.

    (more…)

  • Desire2Learn Conference Summary

    I had fun at the D2L conference last week. As usual, I don’t have as much time as I would like to blog about the details, so this highlight post will have to do:

    • Conference attendance was good. There were about 550 attendees this year, up from about 400 last year.
    • I had chance to get a brief tour of D2L’s new ePortfolio product. It’s quite good, although I continue to be struck by how much effort all the LMS vendors have to put into writing content management capabilities that have been implemented 6,947 times in other systems already. In an ideal world, they would be able to call existing code and focus their efforts on building education-specific enhancements.
    • After my rant about conference bags, D2L made a point of giving out bags that can be re-used as cloth grocery sacks. Now that’s a company with values! I have already re-used my bag for this purpose and am happy to report that it works great.
    • D2L is also the only company I’m aware of that produced a theme album for their conference. Since it was in Memphis, they licensed well-known music that was appropriate for the venue and put it on a CD with the conference program.
    • The attendees seemed to be both well informed and realistic about the patent fight. Despite the risks, new customers are still signing on with D2L. (I even saw an old SUNY colleague from Suffolk County Community College, which just left Blackboard for D2L.)
    • I had a highly enjoyable if somewhat chaotic panel discussion with Barry Dahl, Stephen Downes, and Robbie Melton. It was I have taken to calling The Stephen Downes Experience, with the chat backchannel projected for the audience and speakers to see. I admit that I struggled to keep up with the conversation flow, especially when I was speaking, but the struggle was definitely worth it. I will say, though, that it’s important to set expecations with the audience. Some attendees told me they were not expecting a Web 2.0 social experiment and were a little disappointed that they didn’t get a more traditional panel discussion.
    • I missed the D2L Version 8.3 product launch, but I’m told that their integration story is a big part of it and that they highlighted work that they’ve been doing with my team at Oracle on implementing IMS Enterprise Services v2 (now called Learning Information Services). I’ll have much more to say about that Real Soon Now, when we release our own product.
    • Good news: I managed to avoid spilling beer on Barry Dahl this time. Bad news: That’s partly because I didn’t drink any beer this time.

  • Victory for D2L, Opportunity for Blackboard

    Well, my flight was delayed, so I missed the opportunity to witness D2L’s court victory celebration at Graceland. And I’m sure that they celebrated tonight The court denied Blackboard’s motion for contempt, meaning that Desire2Learn version 8.3 was found to be “more than colorably different” than the infringing version of the software and the court will not find that D2L’s software infringes under the framework of this trial. This does not necessarily mean D2L 8.3 is now and forever free from Blackboard’s patent. What it does mean is that, in order to pursue D2L 8.3, Blackboard would have to start a whole new trial–basically the same long, drawn out and expensive process that they just went through.

    This is another big opportunity for Blackboard to choose discretion as the better part of valor and quit the field. Blackboard still has a small but quickly diminishing chance to salvage their brand, but in order to do so they need to stop this patent foolishness now.

  • Going to the D2L Conference

    Correction: My presentation with Bill Lee is on Wednesday, not Thursday.

    I’ll be going to the Desire2Learn conference Monday night through Wednesday morning this coming week. I’ll be on a lunch panel on Tuesday (I finally will meet Stephen Downes F2F) and will be doing a presentation on IMS Learning Information Services and Oracle/D2L integration with D2L’s Bill Lee on Thursday AM. If you’re going to the conference, feel free to ping me or to track me down.

  • Blackboard Inc. Shows Deep Compassion for Desire2Learn Customers

    As expected, Blackboard has taken Desire2Learn back to court, claiming that 8.3 still infringes and charging them with contempt. Interestingly, the news of this showed up simultaneously in Inside Higher Education, THE Journal, and The Chronicle. It looks like Blackboard may have something to say that they want to make sure we all hear.

    What could it be?

    Here’s one candidate, said by Matt Small to Inside Higher Education:

    “We have all along said and continue to say, and mean, that we don’t want to do anything that will disrupt D2L’s clients, so if D2L should be held in contempt or sanctioned or if it should go bankrupt … we would hate to see a D2L school inadvertently shut down unexpectedly because D2L does not survive, and we’re committed to working with the schools to help them find a non-infringing alternative that is on their budget and on their time frame and of their choice,” he said. [emphasis added]

    How sweet. In a Tony Soprano sort of way, that is.

  • D2L Resolves Current Patent Burdens

    According to the latest entry on D2L’s patent blog, D2L has payed the court judgment plus post-judgment interest in full and has also migrated all customers to version 8.3 of their software, which they claim does not infringe on the patent. There’s been some FUD flying around about whether D2L could handle the financial impact of the judgment. Well, they just did handle it. End of discussion.

  • 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 strengthen patents, and this case is no different.”

    http://www.thejournal.com/articles/22358

    May, 2008 – Blackboard’s filing with the Patent & Trademark Office:

    “Patent Owner Blackboard Inc. (“Blackboard”) hereby petitions the Office to suspend the inter partes reexamination between Blackboard and Third Party Requester Desire2Learn Inc. . . .”

    Petition To Suspend Inter Partes Reexamination Under 35 U.S.C 6314(C)

    Yesterday, despite Blackboard’s prior assertions (including on its own website) about welcoming the re-examination of their patent, Blackboard has now requested that the Patent and Trademark Office stop its re-examination of the patent. We will leave it to others to speculate about the reasons for Blackboard’s change of heart.

    Note: we have not yet received the exhibits that the filing to which the filing refers. When we do receive them, we will post them. (As an aside, we’re still awaiting the exhibits to Blackboard’s response to the PTO’s rejection – they, too, will be posted upon receipt.)

    On another note, and consistent with our position since the beginning of this litigation, yesterday we filed an Emergency Motion To Stay Proceedings Pending Reexamination Or Alternatively, Motion To Stay Judgment Pending Appeal with the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. That filing, as well as the numerous exhibits and related papers that accompanied it, can be found here.

    It looks like D2L wants to pursue this through the USPTO while Blackboard wants to go through the US Court of Appeals. Each is trying to petition one body or other to suspend what could be duplicative processes.