A tool we all use here at Suffolk is BlackBoard. It provides great communication between professors and students outside the classroom. This article explains a recent lawsuit in which BlackBoard won against Desire2Learn. The article raises a good question of whether or not educational tools should be for profit companies?
Blackboard Wins Lawsuit Against Desire2Learn
2/22/2008
By Dian Schaffhauser
Blackboard has prevailed in an e-learning patent dispute against Desire2Learn. A federal jury in Lufkin, TX made the determination Friday afternoon, following a two-week trial. Blackboard was seeking $17 million in lost revenue, as well as an injunction against the company, which is based in Canada.
After a day of deliberation, the jury found the patent valid but suggested that Blackboard should be awarded only $3 million, according to coverage posted on Desire2Learn’s Web site.
During the trial, Blackboard called as an expert witness, Mark Jones, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Virginia Tech, earlier retained by the company to prove the specifications of its patent and dissect the counter-claims by Desire2Learn.
Desire2Learn called as an expert witness Fred Hofstetter, a member of the faculty at the University of Delaware. Hofstetter created Serf, a Web-based distance education environment first introduced in 1997, prior to Blackboard’s introduction of its own virtual learning system.
Following the judgment, Desire2Learn quickly moved to reassure its customers that business would continue as usual. “There is no immediate threat to you our clients,” wrote John Baker, Desire2Learn president and CEO, in the prepared statement. “We will work with you to ensure there are no future issues. We are financially sound and are confident of our ability to work through this matter.”
The company said it would continue to challenge the patent’s validity and Blackboard’s charges of infringement. The United States Patent and Trademark office will be reviewing the patent.
Dian Schaffhauser covers high tech, business and higher education for a number of publications. Contact her at dian@dischaffhauser.com.
Dian Schaffhauser, “Blackboard Wins Lawsuit Against Desire2Learn,” Campus Technology, 2/22/2008, http://www.campustechnology.com/article.aspx?aid=5879
What is most interesting is years ago when Blackboard filed and received the patents on their learning management system (LMS) the negative backlash they encountered from the education community was more than they expected. How could Blackboard get a patent on the online delivery of course materials and instructor/student interaction? The vague and all-encompassing wording of the patent and the fact the it was even granted was a source of outrage. Blackboard suddenly controlled and could prevent competition in the further development of other academic Learning Management Systems.
In reaction to the outcry and to appease its users in the academic community, Blackboard issued a pledge not to assert any of its patents against open source solutions for Learning and/or Content Management Systems. See link and pledge: http://www.blackboard.com/patent/FAQ_013107.htm
So, anyone or any company developing a non-proprietary LMS was safe… if you had developed or wanted to develop a proprietary LMS, such as Desire2Learn had, you were out of luck and had very little protection under the law. So much for free market capitalism and antitrust laws.
A colleague and I developed custom LMS about 6 years ago for UMass which the students and faculty liked better than the commercial alternatives (We had never seen Blackboard but evaluated some its competitors who were around at the time). Our LMS is still in use today, but we can never patent, package, nor sell it for profit because of this patent. Not that we wanted to, but it did cross our minds to find partners or additional funding to do so. But Blackboard’s patent, which was granted 2 years into our development, prevented us from ever doing that. It didn’t bother us much since our intention never was to sell it (we have given it freely to other schools for use and development), but the patents were unnerving to us and many others.
I’m a big fan of open source solutions for education and prefer them to proprietary ones anyway, but I hope one day to see Blackboard’s patent rights challenged and revoked or at least modified so they are not so sweeping and all-inclusive. I think large companies like Microsoft, Adobe, Apple and others, if allowed, could create other proprietary academic learning management systems that could give Blackboard a run for its money, while at the very least ensuring further creativity and development, both of which would be a boon to the end users.