> I believe the European patent is still pending.
Remember that the EU doesn't currently have software patents. It allows
them to be filed in case they become legal in future, but the whole idea
of patenting software is still very contentious in the EU. See:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/07/11/patent_litigation_treaty/
http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/en/m/intro/index.html
Dan
Legg, Chris wrote:
> I don't think we should be too surprised at Blackboard's attempt to
> protect their own product or consolidate/improve their position in the
> marketplace. It's what corporations do, right? However, if patent
> rights are then used to cripple or pick off the competition - whose
> products so many of us use - that's quite another matter.
>
> As a user of one of Blackboard's products, I already feel a level of
> 'simmering user resentment' at the kind of support we (don't) get. At
> times, it seems very difficult to get answers to even simple questions,
> and technical support can also be a long time coming. I hate to think
> what might happen if their commercial and open-source rivals disappear
> or are so diminished that we are left with alternatives that
> decision-makers won't adopt because the perceived risk is too great.
>
> I believe the European patent is still pending. Perhaps The European
> Patent Office will see things differently from their American cousins.
> If not, I guess Desire2Learn won't be the only vendor being dragged into
> legal wrangling.
>
> Chris Legg
> Hastings College of Arts and Technology
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *From:* Virtual Learning Environments [mailto:[log in to unmask]] *On
> Behalf Of *Wyatt, Tristram
> *Sent:* 02 August 2006 11:11
> *To:* [log in to unmask]
> *Subject:* [VLES] FW: [sloan-c] Blackboard Patents the LMS
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> *From:* jetchs [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> *Sent:* 02 August 2006 01:09
> *To:* Sloan Consortium Mailing List
> *Subject:* [sloan-c] Blackboard Patents the LMS
>
>
>
> Hi everyone,
>
>
>
> Must be a lot of people on vacation or otherwise occupied, because this
> is truly big news; so like Michael Feldstein, I'm surprised there hasn't
> been more uproar about this story that Blackboard has received a patent
> for the LMS
> <http://mfeldstein.com/index.php/weblog/permalink/blackboard_patents_the_lms/>
> (see also Bb's press release
> <http://www.blackboard.com/company/press/release.aspx?id=887622>). Of
> course, as Stephen Downes reports, there are in fact plenty of people
> upset about this development
> <http://www.downes.ca/cgi-bin/page.cgi?journal=24>, including the fact
> that Bb has already filed suit against Desire2Learn
> <http://www.theinquirer.net/images/articles/blackboard.pdf> (in eastern
> Texas, for some strange reason) and is causing concern "about the future
> of open source initiatives such as Moodle and Sakai
> <http://www.academiccommons.org/commons/announcement/us-patent-office-strikes-again-awards-broad-patent-to-blackboard>"
> (according to the Academic Commons website).
>
>
>
> IMO this is a major miscalculation on the part of Blackboard -- if they
> wanted to become the Microsoft of the LMS world, they will have
> certainly gained the same level of simmering user resentment; whether
> they ever attain a comparable market share is more questionable. Their
> claims of having invented the LMS are silly enough -- yesterday at
> lunch, a colleague of mine and I were going through the list of
> LMS-related products we'd already used or researched before Blackboard
> (Searchlight, Lotus Notes, FirstClass, TopClass, Web Course in a Box),
> and of course the list is much larger than that.
>
>
>
> Who it really makes look stupid, however, is the US Patent Office --
> whatever could they have been thinking?
>
>
>
> John
>
>
>
> John Sener
>
> Sener Learning Services
>
> www.senerlearning.com <http://www.senerlearning.com>
>
> 301-754-0688
>
>
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