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Blackboard Wins Patent Suit Against Desire2Learn
edremy writes "Blackboard, the dominant learning management system (LMS) maker, has won its initial suit against Desire2Learn. Blackboard gets $3.1 million and can demand that Desire2Learn stop US sales. (We discussed Blackboard when the patent was issued in 2006) This blog provides background on the suit. Blackboard has been granted a patent that covers a single person having multiple roles in an LMS: for example, a TA might be a student in one class and an instructor in another. You wouldn't think something this obvious could even be patented, but so far it's been a very effective weapon for Blackboard, badly hurting Desire2Learn and generating a huge amount of worry for the few remaining commercial LMSs that Blackboard has not already bought, and open source solutions such as Moodle (Blackboard's pledge not to attack such providers notwithstanding)."
Despite everything we've heard about defense against stupid patents, it seems clear that the Obviousness doctrine really doesn't matter to courts. And I hear thought the Supreme Court gave the doctrine a boost recently. I guess if you can't beat 'em, join 'em - I'm going to take a patent troll class, powered by BlackBoard!
Part of the hardcore faithful who believed in Apple long before it was cool again to do so
Wait... I was a student at TRU, also in BC, Canada. They found a system WORSE than WebCT?!?! Holy crap, that IS Slashdot-worthy!
I like to place meaningful quotes in my sig, so people will know that I know what meaningful quotes are.
Well I can truly say that I feel somewhat better today, unless of course you go to the same school that I do, in which case it proves nothing.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
I believe Windows has been copyrighted for quite some time.
Of course it is. It's a perfectly cromulent word.
Ignore this signature. By order.
Wrong! It stands for Laughably Moronic System!
maybe they'll dump their winnings into a good developer who can code his way out of the shitstorm that is blackboard
C7 C4 25 8A 11 BB 0D 40 8F 4E 4E 47 CA F0 BE 5B
"Learning Management System, it says it right in the summery."
So, in addition to reading the title, you want us to read the summary, too?
Man, this is really going to test my attention span.
Except for the professors who actually listen to the students. In my brief time trying to use Blackboard as an instructor, I pretty much concluded that I would spend more time trying to make it behave than it would take me to write the damn thing from scratch, so I used it as little as humanly possible.
The only thing it did that I couldn't do trivially with my own web space was do online quizzes, and frankly, I could have hacked something together that would have been less painful for both teacher and students in a day or less... coding while drunk, while smoking crack, while a herd of midget pygmy women had their way with me, while watching Red Dwarf reruns, while being beaten ruthlessly by a psycho ex-girlfriend with a cat of nine tails, and while hanging upside down with a rope tied to my testicles... simultaneously....
Yes, it is really that bad. In fact, that description pretty much summarizes how it felt to use Blackboard from a teacher's perspective. If your teachers like it, I truly wonder about them. :-D
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
What point of sale software are we talking about :)