All 44 Blackboard Patent Claims Invalidated by USPTO at e-Literate
This is important for all who are currently examining an LMS system or have one in place with an end-of-life plan.
In a nutshell, Blackboard was claiming Intellectual Property (IP) patented rights to the software user roles and responsibilities, much like the Microsoft NT Server technology assigns them, with an LMS layer of student / teacher responsibilities.
Keeping it brief:
Any Technical Communication software company who has the penetration into the existing e-Learning space has a potential to leverage those existing relationships and push out a Software as a Service (SaaS) demo for their users to try before they buy. Striking down the LMS patent claims held by Blackboard opens up the market along with insulating the existing LMS providers from further IP claims.
In short, my interpretation is that the court found that Blackboard’s claims were too broad. It also ‘Linuxizes’ much of the LMS market. Just what free enterprise needs in a $400 million market.
Of course, Blackboard will appeal the judgement. My perspective is that their model was based on fear and intimidation of the market without any real innovation after the initial development of the concept.
In my brief time away from my construction project in NorCal, I found this article at e-Literate about the Blackboard LMS patents being rejected:
On March 25, the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office issued its Non-Final Action on the re-examination of the Blackboard Patent. We are studying the document, found here, but in short, the PTO has rejected all 44 of Blackboard’s claims.
There are some other background blog articles that are fantastic at presenting the entire picture of what Blackboard’s patents were, how they were presented, and what this means.
Legal stuff? Make it easy please…
I’ve got a background in legal review, but it’s nice to see someone analyze the legal brief and outline it. One of the best and easily understood - A Description of the Blackboard Patent in Plain English sums up its analysis:
Once we cut through the pseudo-technical mumbo jumbo it’s apparent that there is no there there. If Blackboard gets away with this it will be one of the great hoaxes of this century.
I recommend reviewing that article because it’s the most concise and combines visual diagrams along with Michael Feldstein’s e-Literate text explaining the case.
Needless to say, the discussion on the topic at e-Literate is most telling. User opinion is very strong, and this is yet another case of Corporate Authenticity being tested.
Yeah, but what does this mean?
My analysis is that this is groundbreaking.
It means that without the patents, there is a lot less risk involved with getting into the very lucrative LMS game.
It also means that Microsoft and Adobe risk a lot less in pushing LMS boundaries - maybe in existing product lines they already have for Technical Communication.
Other LMS wanna-be’s who happen to have a strong Technical Communication software product offering (Adobe, MadCap, even Microsoft) can now look at SaaS as a model for penetrating the LMS market through their existing customer base.
I see the framework that MadCap has developed as being the strongest towards this area, seconded only by Adobe. With MadCap’s existing focus on Lingo and the Analyzer, they have the ability to 2.0 their existing software quickly and rip a new one in the LMS market. With their rabid and enthusiastic fan (customer) base they’ll lose no time in coming up with a killer application.
Adobe is no slouch to eLearning. They announced a $200 million commitment to developing in India, primarily for TechComm, Gaming, and eLearning over five years. That’s equivalent to $1.2 billion spent in the US. I’m sure they’re working on something in that space as well.
Microsoft has some well hidden LMS potential I won’t speculate too much about publicly.
Maybe someone will offer me some dollars for consulting to talk about it further, but the broad strokes are seen in my past articles. 
Previous CharlesJeter.com articles relating to LMS:
Posted by Charles in Blended Learning, Corporate Authenticity, Software, eLearning |
