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Blackboard Vows To Press On
An interview with Blackboard Chief Legal Officer Matthew Small
4/2/2008
Blackboard's Next Moves
At this point, Blackboard has nearly two months in which to respond to the current action of the USPTO. As of this writing, Blackboard has not yet submitted its response, but will do so, Small said, within the given timeframe.
He added that Blackboard continues to honor the pledge it made last year not to press
Small: The main takeaway is Blackboard has been an incredibly responsible member of the e-learning community. We have a patent. Lots and lots of people in the e-learning community have patents: universities, publishers, other software providers, other course management system providers. There's cross-licensing that happens all the time between competitors, between software companies, especially commercial software companies. This one has taken on a lot of publicity because I think Desire2Learn has chosen to fight in the court of public opinion. These things are usually negotiated between parties. The fact is they do infringe. We had a sweeping victory in court. They have an injunction pending against them right now. And they're in very dire straits. I hope that they will do the right thing and come up with a valid workaround or sit down with Blackboard and work out a reasonable royalty or obey the court's injunction. The ball is in their court.
With respect to the rest of the world, Blackboard has been very forthright in promising that it will never assert this patent against home-grown systems or open source software. We put together a patent pledge, which we issued last year to that effect, and we stand by that. I'm not aware of any other company that has gone as far as our patent pledge in conveying those assurances. This is an isolated suit between us and Desire2Learn, and I think the claims that they've made [that] this reexam is meaningful to this case or in any way circumvents the injunction pending against them or in any way invalidates our patent are misleading. Desperate moves given the very difficult position that they're in. I think the community will be best served if Desire2Learn focuses on the patent law and does the right thing and comes up with a valid workaround or takes a license or obeys the court order. [Then] we can all focus on the more important mission of teaching and learning instead of arguing in the press about what preliminary Patent Office reexamination rulings mean.
Nagel: Now that wasn't a shot at me, was it?
Small: No, not at all.
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--D. Nagel |
About the author: Dave Nagel is the executive editor for 1105 Media's educational technology online publications and electronic newsletters. He can be reached at dnagel@1105media.com.
Have any additional questions? Want to share your story? Want to pass along a news tip? Contact Dave Nagel, executive editor, at dnagel@1105media.com.
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