A quick post, I came across some interesting news happening in the e-learning industry this week. Blackboard a Learning Management System (LMS) maker out of the US has won a patent suit against Desire2Learn. Desire2Learn is another popular LMS provider whose web based software is in active use in schools across Canada. If you're a recent post-secondary graduate you've likely used a Desire2Learn or Blackboard web product in at least a few of your courses. Blackboard made the news a while back when they acquired WebCT.
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. ... Blackboard gets $3.1 million and can demand that Desire2Learn stop US sales.
Patents in any kind of software have been a very controversial issue over the last few years. It seems I'm hearing about businesses more and more that are able to successfully gain patents for fairly obvious software functionality. The Blackboard case is important news for web developers as you have to wonder what kind of precedent this will set for other web based software. Amazon seems to crop up in this arena from time to time but this is the first time I've seen a stand-alone web product do this. Most web developers consider the web to be a pretty open platform and have accepted the fact that ideas get copied and improved upon and that in the end it's better for everyone. My question is how did Blackboard get a patent like that? And who made that call? I'm all for originators getting their dues, but you have to ask where would any industry be without different takes on old ideas. Google, I'm looking at you.