The essence of Blackboard's patent is the claim that they came up with the core idea underlying enterprise learning management systems. The core idea consists of two parts:
- first, a user can access resources from multiple courses in a unified way
- second, a user can have multiple roles across courses
According to Matthew Small (Blackboard counsel), before Blackboard "each course was an island onto itself...Each course required a different logon, different central space, new calendar, new inbox...you couldn't move from one to another." Blackboard was "struggling" with how to come out with "enterprise software" and hit upon the idea of a "user centric" system wherein a user would logon once, "find their central space, could see all their courses and the role they played in each of those courses and could move from course to course." Moreover, as a user moved from one course to another, their role could change while maintaining their central space. For example, a student in one class could be an instructor in another class. (Matthew Small quotes are based on notes from Blackboard Patent Q&A Webinar, September 18th)
Recall that in order to receive a patent you merely have to describe the idea of how such a system might work. It's not necessary to have it embodied (i.e. write the program) in any particular system.
In its response D2L claims that the core idea was described by a technical team working on behalf of Educom/NLII in April 1998, well before Blackboard's patent filing. Moreover, Blackboard participated in the IMS team and, therefore, was fully aware of the prior art.
The following are excerpts from the Educom/NLII document. They establish decisively that, if anything, Blackboard ripped off the idea from the specifications work of the IMS technical team. Desire2Learn is fully justified in asserting that Blackboard's failure to disclose the IMS prior art was "intentional and done with deceptive intent".
EDUCOM/NLLI Instructional Management Systems Project Draft 0.5 April 29, 1998
"We have defined these stakeholders in terms of the different roles involved in the process of learning. These roles are often performed by the same stakeholder: someone who is a teacher may also play the role of a learner and vice versa: similarly, a content provider may also engage in activities associated with the role of a teacher."
"An IMS Profile for a user may include both learner-specific and author-specific information since an individual can be both a teacher in one context and a learner in another."
"We want programs that provide the user experience to have the ability to present groups and content from multiple IMS locations and vendors in one consistent view." (Note: the work of the IMS team describes an even more general scenario than the Blackboard patent since what is envisioned is the possibility of course materials residing in different systems yet presented to a user in a unified and consistent manner.)
"Resources and utilities dynamically configure their presentation to the user based in part on group data."
The blokes on the IMS team thought they would "enable an open architecture for learning." Little did they know that Blackboard behind the scenes was moving to lock it up and then later would try to extort royalties from competitors.
Blackboard's continuing public claim that it "invented" some of the "core technology" underlying enterprise learning management systems is a mockery. And then to file a lawsuit against a much smaller competitor is outrageous.
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