Click here to receive your FREE subscription to Campus Technology
Current News
Patently Offensive
11/1/2006
By Terry Calhoun
Could there be any clearer evidence that the United States patent system is dysfunctional, than the patent awarded to Blackboard? Well, yeah, if you look at the filings, they can get pretty absurd. And now there are whole companies that have never done anything and they’re buying up old patents and finding new ways to clobber people with them.
But this one hits close to home, so we in higher education don’t have to look any further. We know about the history of course management systems: It is our own history. And now Blackboard thinks that it owns it. (But we don’t have to worry because it likes universities and nonprofits. Whew!)
I once interviewed then-Blackboard CEO Matthew Pittinsky for the newsletter of a now-defunct association of Internet professionals. I remember walking into a big, grey Washington, DC building, past the offices of Mitsubishi of America, and entering the Blackboard lobby, which had a foosball table and several, red beanbag chairs, plus a dry-erase board on the wall charting the number of institutions that had at that time at least one faculty member who had adopted Blackboard for use in a course. The numbers were still in double digits.
I’ve watched Blackboard since even before that visit, as well as its commercial competitors and the various open source (Sakai) and proprietary versions. It is patently ridiculous and offensive to the brain to imagine Blackboard legitimately owning a patent that would limit the option for others to implement the basics of course management systems. We all participated in the development of this product. When I visited Blackboard HQ, I didn’t see anyone who looked older than high school age. The whole early business model was clearly predicated on getting users to use it for free and in so doing being participants in the development of the functionality, bringing their maturity and expertise to bear on the development of the tool. As one recent Campus Technology article puts it:
Nearly all of today’s commercially available Learning Management Systems started off as homegrown university systems that were later commercialized. For example, Blackboard started at Cornell University, WebCT [now merged with Blackboard] at University of British Columbia, and Desire2Learn at University of Waterloo. If a group on your campus wished to develop an LMS today, what would be your legal advice on the matter?
Recommended Reading
- Campus Security :: June 27, 2008
:::::: NETWORK SECURITY
: Delivering Slices of Network Securely at USC
:::::: CAMPUS SECURITY NEWS
: VMware Finds Home on Campus in Disaster Recovery Planning
: Microsoft Advisory Targets SQL Injection Attacks
: Mobile Security To Surface in Sybase iAnywhere Suite
: Southeast Missouri State Says Former Employee Took Student Data
: Universities Deploy Procera Hardware to Prioritize Network Traffic
: Dartmouth Launches 2-Week Crash Course in Security
: Survey: Many Microsoft Patches Are Going Uninstalled
: New Bluetooth Patch Fixes XP Security Hole- IT Trends :: Thursday, June 26, 2008
:::::: FOCUS
:: Lyon's 1:1 Laptop Program Aims To 'Level the Playing Field' for Students
:::::: IT NEWS
:: Windows XP's Death Is for Real, Microsoft Rep Explains
:: Temple To Deploy Wireless LAN Across 8 Campuses in Philly
:: Adobe Releases Acrobat 9, Creative Suite 3.3
:: Microsoft Open XML Converter Arrives for Mac
:: Pentaho's BI Platform Released Under GPL
:: New Bluetooth Patch Fixes XP Security Hole
:: New 11.0 openSuSE Linux OS Released- C-Level View :: June 25, 2008
:::::: EXECUTIVE VIEW
: The Educational Software Paradox - Can We Learn to Unlearn?
:::::: WORTH NOTING
: D2L: Blackboard's Comments 'Contempt(ible)'
: Ohio State Installing Interactive Technologies in Campus Incubator
: New Green Supercomputer Powers Up at Purdue
: Western Governors U Offers New Online Degree in Health Informatics
: Foothill-De Anza CC District Deploys Abaca for E-mail Protection- SmartClassroom :: Wednesday, June 27, 2008
:::::: VIEWPOINT
: Podcasting in Instruction: Moving Beyond the Obvious
:::::: NEWS and PRODUCT UPDATES
: D2L: Blackboard's Comments 'Contempt(ible)'
: Ohio State Installing Interactive Technologies in Campus Incubator
: Samsung Launches Pint-Sized Projector
: Mediasite 5.0 Debuts; New Classroom Recorders Coming in July
: Mitsubishi Launches Wireless, Short-Throw Projectors- News Update :: Tuesday, June 24, 2008
:::::: NEWS
: Sao Paulo University Taps Sun Technology for Computing Cluster
: Ohio State Installing Interactive Technologies in Campus Incubator
: New Green Supercomputer Powers Up at Purdue
: Mediasite 5.0 Debuts; New Classroom Recorders Coming in July
: Intel 'Holding Back' USB 3.0 Spec, Says Nvidia
: Allegheny College Launches Energy Reduction Program
: Virginia Tech Automates User State Management with Kaseya
: Tokai U Uses PTC MCAD Software To Design Car that Competes at Le Mans- IT Trends :: Thursday, June 19, 2008
:::::: CASE STUDY
:: Job Scheduling Software Smooths Data Transfers at IUF
:::::: IT NEWS
:: Blackboard Continues Pursuit of Desire2Learn
:: IBM Launches 'Carbon Strategy' Service in Project Big Green
:: Microsoft Joins Open Source Census Group
:: Swedes Deploy Dual-Boot 'Green' Supercomputer with IBM, Intel Chips
:: U North Texas To Roll Out ImageNow for Document Management
:: Cambridge Installs Panasus Parallel Storage System for Research Support
:: Novell Joins Microsoft Server Virtualization Validation Program, Runs Windows Server 2008 On SUSE Linux Enterprise
