Stuart Sim has live-blogged the IMS Q&A session with Blackboard regarding their patent. For those of you who don’t know him, Stuart is no wild-eyed long-haired academic commie pinko. He’s the Chief Architect at Sun Microsystems’ Global Education and Research Group. Although there doesn’t appear to be much news out of the conversation, I think you’ll find his analysis interesting.
Tag: edupatents
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Al Essa's Analysis of the Blackboard FAQ
After promising to wait for Al’s analysis before publishing mine, I mistook his initial post for his final word and jumped the gun. Al’s own blow-by-blow analysis is up now. As you’ll see, we’re in pretty close agreement on it.
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An Analysis of the Latest Blackboard Patent FAQ
This week, Blackboard issued another FAQ which “is the result of numerous discussions with those interested in better understanding the Blackboard patent.” Do their answers make the topic clearer? Let’s do a question-by-question analysis and see. (more…)
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Blackboard's Patent FAQ #2: The Empire Strikes Back
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.
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Patents and IMS Common Cartridge
A while back, IMS CEO Rob Abel was kind enough to comment on my post regarding the potential impact of patents on educational technology standards. As part of his summary at the end of the comment, he wrote,
It’s difficult for Blackboard or any other vendor to “game” the standards process in IMS due to our IP policies. So, in fact the standards organizations are a great way to bring issues like this out so they can be known – and, in the case of standards, potentially go in a different direction if one organization’s IP is encumbering. The standards become the known ground that vendors must share without claims.
While I appreciate Mr. Abel’s effort in sharing his thoughts, and while I am glad to hear his optimism, I’m afraid that recent history with technology patents shows that it is not so easy for standards bodies to protect themselves from abuse by aggressive patent holders. (more…)
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(Almost) Back in the Saddle Again
Well, after a week of being crushed in moving boxes, I’ve managed to dig out enough to find my computer. Lucky for me Al Essa posted a week-in-review summary of the Blackboard EduPatentGate drama that helped me get back up to speed. Al has been doing a fantastic job of attacking the problem from a number of different angles. If you care about this issue and haven’t yet subscribed to his feed, you really should.
I’m working on some follow-up regarding the impact of patents on standards development and have should that plus at least a few other posts up this week, with the goal of getting back to normal by the beginning of next week. So stay tuned. In the meantime, you might enjoy reading a piece on EduPatentGate from Justin Pope at the Associated Press. Here it is on ABC News’ web site. Business Week, the Washington Post, and USAToday have also picked it up so far.
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Desire2Learn's Prior Art Needs
A source close to Desire2Learn sent me the following information regarding the information they need to gather for the patent suit:
While anecdotal evidence, e-mails, links and electronic documents are all appreciated and helpful, the very best things are the lowest tech: hard copy users guides from June 1998 and earlier would be useful, especially if they have a big, fat copyright date on the front. Any kind of documentation, release notes, even brochures would be helpful. They can snail mail them to Prior Art, c/o Desire2Learn, 72 Victoria Street South, Suite 401, Kitchener, Ontario N2G 4Y9, Canada.