November 2006 — News
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Blackboard Responds to SFLC Filing
"I think that kind of overly broad, inflammatory language is illustrative of the [SFLA]'s approach in representing Sakai and Moodle," said Blackboard's Small in response to Moglen's statement. "What he's saying is there's no room for patents in education. It's important to the education community that commercial providers and universities have the ability to invent and invest and publish their inventions without fear that people will just step in and claim them as their own and piggyback ... on their investments."
He also said that the filing was not unexpected and that he sees it as a "marketing tactic": "The patent has become somewhat of a marketing tool for them, and things like this reexam I think are more focused on marketing tactics than the patent itself."
In a prepared statement released earlier Thursday, representatives from Moodle, Sakai and ATutor also commented on Blackboard's patent and the impact they think it could potentially have on the development of educational software.
"The educational software community has for decades thrived on the open discussion and transmission of ideas," said Joseph Hardin, Sakai Foundation board chairman. "We are deeply concerned that Blackboard's broad patent will stifle innovation in our community."
Blackboard's Small said he doesn't see it this way. "The most important thing is that Blackboard though its actions has always been an advocate of openness, innovation, collaboration and the development of a large community of sharing," Small said. "And we wouldn't do anything to stifle that innovation. We've never done anything [negative directed toward] any open source group."
Small also said that Blackboard had approached Sakai about the issue and had offered a free license to the open-source project. However, he said that Sakai gave Blackboard a 10-day ultimatum to provide a non-assertion policy for this patent "and any patent Blackboard ever obtains for any open-source use [and] for any commercial [use]," Small said, calling the demand "unprecedented and unreasonable."
A statement released by the SFLC Thursday claimed that Blackboard's patent "grants Blackboard a monopoly on most educational software that differentiates between the roles of teacher and student until the year 2022."
"A patent on an educational concept—namely the relationship among students, instructors, and administrators—makes no sense," said Greg Gay, project lead of ATutor. "Such ideas are public and have been practiced for centuries; they are not the result of research and development."
But Blackboard's Small said that this is a misconception. "This is not a patent on the difference between the role of the teacher and student. I think that's just an incorrect characterization."
He also added that any reexamination of the patent could actually work in Blackboard's favor. "We welcome another look at the patent and believe that a reexam will only serve to strengthen the patent. [We're] confident in the strength and validity of the patent and think [the reexamination] will not raise any new issues."
