Open letter to Blackboard: $1M to charity if you drop patent litigation

http://www.desire2learn.com/million/

by paulgb • 17 years ago

87 55 17 years ago

aristus• 17 years ago

I'd dig deeper on this one. When a company says "we will donate $X to schools", they often mean the notional retail value of their products. My high school computer class was drowning in donated AOL floppies, MS Office licenses, and copies of the soundtrack to Gigli.

It's carpet bombing, basically. Maybe the kids benefit, maybe not, but they are being used in a distasteful way.

paulgb7• 17 years ago

Good point, but judging from this I think they are talking about cash:

"$1,000,000 from Desire2Learn can make a significant difference for thousands of students through the purchase of laptops, technology, supplies and other much needed educational support."

breck3• 17 years ago

That is a good point. If they wrote out the check or put it in escrow, that would make the case even stronger.

Let's assume they mean $1M cash. This is an awesome move. Our legal system really needs an overhaul. So little value is created in suits like this and so much time and resources are poured into them. Kudos to them.

I speak from not much, but some experience after suing a corporation(very reluctantly) and being sued personally.

ksvs2• 17 years ago

Anyone have a link to the patent Blackboard claims they're infringing?

markbao2• 17 years ago

#6,988,138 Internet-based education support system and methods

http://www.google.com/patents?id=RX94AAAAEBAJ&dq=6,988,1...

In plain english: http://mfeldstein.com/images/uploads/Blackboard_Patent_Claim...

* I'm a BB competitor, so it's in my area (that is, I hope I don't get sued)

ksvs2• 17 years ago

Wow, that is a completely bogus patent. It is just a description of their software, translated into a patent. There's not one aspect of it that's non-obvious.

Students should organize a boycott of them. That would put pressure on them to stop this nonsense.

snprbob86• 17 years ago

A Wikipedia citation [1] states that all 44 patent claims were non-finally rejected on March 25th, 2008 upon re-examination. Does anyone know what ever came of this?

[1] http://mfeldstein.com/all-44-blackboard-patent-claims-invali...

jeremytliles• 17 years ago

Having had to use Blackboard several times in the past, I have a hard time believing they have any IP that should be protected. As I recall, their functionality is similar to any number of portal-type applications (groups, discussions, document postings, different access levels, etc.) It looks to me as if their patents rest on the fact that they are applying obvious processes/technology to a specific vertical: education.

Of course I'm not an IP lawyer, this is just my layman's opinion.

mustpax• 17 years ago

Not only that, last time I used it, Blackboard was a sad, sad excuse for a web app. Poorly designed, poorly executed, bad usability overall. But Blackboard is the type of app IT managers love. It's what everyone else is using, so it must be Ok. No IT manager ever lost her job for buying something too conservative.

What really makes me disillusioned about the current state of IP law is that you mostly see the poorly performing incumbents go after the innovating start-ups with patent lawsuits. I know I'm biased about this, but I really can't remember the last time some fledgling start-up was trying to protect itself with its patents. With patent portfolios, size matters, as long as you've got plenty of tricks up your sleeve, you can always settle in a reasonable manner.

dhimes• 17 years ago

When they first started pitching, we were a local school (Alexandria Va) and somewhat on the forefront of using tech in the classroom (for back then). I was co-chair of what you might call a "User group" (it was called the Teaching, Learning, and Technology Roundtable) back then, so I got to see their stuff and we came on board as an early adopter.

That said, I almost never used it. Yahoo provided all the functionality I needed that I didn't have on my web site or couldn't do with email (like chat for office hours, etc.).

It was just too cumbersome. I thought maybe they were better by now.

When I moved to the MA area, WebCT was in the area and I had an idea for them. Alas, they were bought by BB before I ever got anything organized. I figured at that time that BB was circling the drain. When the lawsuits started, I knew I was right.

jpwagner• 17 years ago

Blackboard is infamous for this. They hold patents for ridiculously vague definitions of web-based education...

dtap• 17 years ago

And sue people like crazy to protect them...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackboard_Inc.#Blackboard_lega...

It takes more space on their wikipedia entry than their actual products.

endtime• 17 years ago

That isn't surprising, since their products are pretty terrible. My undergrad school used Blackboard and whenever the prof for a class actually wanted to use it (not often) it was a huge pain in the ass. Maybe they should fire some lawyers and hire some developers...

mattmaroon3• 17 years ago

Those bullet points aren't all suits. There's one involving domain names which they won (clearly they were in the right there). There's the one this article talks about (which has been going on for a while and was ruled in their favor previously) and another which it doesn't show the result of but wasn't over patents.

I wouldn't say 1 patent suit makes them overly-litigous.

snewe• 17 years ago

According to that entry:

"On March 25, 2008, the US patent office issued a non-final action rejecting all 44 claims of Blackboard's patent."

So what is all the fuss about?

wallflower• 17 years ago

They've already paid Blackboard $3.3M (with the idea that they'll get the money back on appeal)?

"On another note, we've reached an agreement with Blackboard, and yesterday wired $3,313.552.40 to it, in full payment of the judgment (and post-judgment interest) awarded by the Court. These funds will be returned to Desire2Learn if and when the judgment is reversed."

http://www.desire2learn.com/patentinfo/

palish2• 17 years ago

Meant to upvote, not downvote, sorry. Upvoting 2 other of your good comments.

tjic• 17 years ago

This sounds like well orchestrated PR to me.

For better or worse, intellectual property laws exist, and Desire2learn.com seems to have infringed on Blackboard.

If Blackboard wins, Desire2learn suffers a big hit in their profits.

So Desire2learn says "Hey, here's an idea ... we won't change anything at all about what we're doing, but instead of paying you a big pile of cash, we propose to pay someone else a SMALLER pile of cash".

They're both profit-motivated companies (and I've got ZERO problem with that), and I dislike Desire2learn trying to pretend that they "care about the children", when it's clear that they're motivated primarily by the dollars and cents of the situation.

It's dishonest.

paulgb7• 17 years ago

Of course PR is a part of this. They don't hide that. ("As for public opinion, yes, we plead guilty. We do value public opinion, especially in the educational community.") [1]

Have you read the patent claims? markbao posted them above in this thread. It's hard to side with Blackboard after reading what they are trying to protect.

[1] http://www.desire2learn.com/patentinfo/

dbr4• 17 years ago

While I agree that the patent is ridiculous in what it claims is an original idea, let's try to fix the patent system which awarded the patent, instead of blaming Blackboard for bad behavior.

After all, if Blackboard didn't get the patent first, some other company would, and Blackboard would be the one infringing.

All of these problems would go away if patents were awarded properly.

mattmaroon3• 17 years ago

If I were Blackboard, I'd write an open letter detailing how I was going to win $50 million off of them in court and then donate $1m to charity.

breck3• 17 years ago

I am not on BB's side here, but this is a smart strategy. :)

dbr4• 17 years ago

I know it isn't going to be popular to say that Blackboard is not a bad company for getting these patents and suing others for infringement. The truth is, the patent system is what mandates Blackboard's behavior. If Blackboard didn't get the overbearing patent when they could, another company would, and Blackboard would be the ones being sued for infringement right now. So blame the patent system and lobby to change it instead of getting mad at Blackboard.

By the way, my school is switching from Blackboard to ANGEL (open source) to save money.

paulgb7• 17 years ago

Not a bad company for owning the patents? Agreed. Not a bad company for litigating on them? No. No one, not even a bad system, forced them to litigate. Just because a what a company does is legal doesn't mean it shouldn't cost them in public image.

I do agree with your main point, which is that the patent system needs to be changed. But startups like Desire2Learn are too busy to spend time fighting the US Patent system, especially when (like D2L) they aren't even based in the US.

dbr4• 17 years ago

They are a publicly traded company and litigating the issue makes business sense for them. For Blackboard to not sue their competitors for infringing on patents they own would not be against stockholder interest.

noonespecial• 17 years ago

We've worked for Blackboard in the past. They make more from lawsuits and extorted "license fees" than product easy. Its my hunch that the "product" is just there to prop up the patent crap.

jcromartie• 17 years ago

Fun Blackboard fact: professors ask students to submit homework files with their initials prepended to them because Blackboard will overwrite files with the same name no matter who uploads them!

yummyfajitas• 17 years ago

A professor actually asks students to submit homework files via blackboard? This is the first I've heard of such a thing, and I'm a prof (well, postdoc).

TJensen• 17 years ago

I worked for a company that had close ties to BB and WebCT. Working with BB was always a nightmare - they were exactly what you would think from reading this page. WebCT were great to work with.

It was a sad day when the acquisition happened. Certainly one of the worst things that could happen for the students using the software.

Open letter to Blackboard: $1M to charity if you drop patent litigation

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