One of the interesting twists in the Blackboard Inc v Desire2Learn Patent Case is the potential abuse by Blackboard of the standards process. Michael Feldstein (eLiterate blog) posed the issue last year. Let's revive it because it's one of the subtexts in the current trial. Furthermore, it raises a disturbing challenge to the integrity of the standards process.
First, let's state the facts. Before Blackboard filed the '138 patent a number of prominent Blackboard people, including some of the purported patent "inventors" worked as consultants to the IMS standards body during the late 1990s. The list includes prominent people such as Michael Chasen and Mathew Pittinsky, both Blackboard co-founders. Some of them were paid consultants to IMS.
On April 29, 1998 IMS published a document entitled "EDUCOM/NLII Instructional Management Systems Specifications Document Version 0.5". Bob Alcorn, Mike Petit, and Udo Schuermann from Blackboard are listed as contributors to the specification document. (Alcorn is listed as one of the "inventors" of the '138 patent).
I want to emphasize that the IMS Specification came out prior to Blackboard's patent filing, which occurred in 1999.
Now, here are some excerpts from the IMS document:
"In the IMS, as in many groupware products today, users participate in a group in the context of a particular role (emphasis mine). For example, in the Biology 101 group, Mary Clark may be playing the role of a student. In this respect, she will only have access to those items that are granted to students (emphasis mine). In addition, students are an identifiable group of people, so the teacher can send an e-mail to all of the students without having to address them one-by-one. In the Biology Study Group contained in the Biology 101 group, Mary plays the role of Group Leader. As such, she is able to invite new users into the group, add resources to the group, and otherwise manage the group."
The Specification further describes collaboration tools and a user's access to them based on her role:
Discussion lists will use their knowledge of group membership to control what messages are listed. Tools may also grant or deny use privileges based on their ability to ascertain a user's role in the current group context.
The IMS Specification also introduces the concept of a "Role Based Access Control Model" to control user access to various tools and objects.
"The IMS security service uses the Role Based Access Control (RBAC) Model designed by NIST. Access control to IMS objects using the NIST RBAC mechanism is provided by the security environment and by the IMS object."
Now compare the concepts described in the quotes above with a description of Blackboard's "purported" invention. I think it's obvious that the IMS specification is describing the very thing that Blackboard claims to have invented, namely the notion of multiple user roles and differential access to resources based on those roles.
Here it appears, fairly conclusively I believe, that we have not only prior art but also that Blackboard sponged the idea from the very standards body it participated in and was paid to participate in.
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