I’ve been biting my tongue on this whole Blackboard-patents-the-LMS brouhaha that’s going around. I did add my 2 cents to the Wikipedia VLE Prior Art page, with a link to one of the two LMSes I’ve been involved in building before Blackboard applied for this patent.
What follows is a largely stream-of-consciousness rant about some of the issues involved.
I find it completely unfathomable that such a basic and well established classification of software could be summarily handed to a single company. I’m planning on taking some time to actually read the patent, to see if it’s as general as everyone says, or is it really (hopefully) a vaguely worded description of their particular implementation. A cursory glance at it suggests that they’ve managed to throw in utilities ranging from online storage of user data, to storing files on a server…
However, the greater problem isn’t this particular case, but rather the more general issue of software patents as a whole. These intentionally vaguely worded litigation factories only benefit one group of people – shareholders in the patent holding company.
Here’s what’s driving the whole patent engine – public companies are held legally responsible to maximize profit for their shareholders. To the extent that if they fail to generate profit (or acceptably sufficient profit) they can be sued by shareholders. The board of directors is liable. Which drives public companies to squeeze every possible gram of cash out of any possible revenue stream. If they failed to get the patent for a product, and someone else managed to get it – and then came after the company – shareholders would be pissed. So, software patents are conceptually an arms race. Companies are filing patent applications for anything they can think of in order to both protect themselves from others doing the same thing, and to maximize profit by handing the patent to their lawyers and owning a market segment as a result.
But – the patent office should be acting as a filter, preventing these blatant patent grabs as being invalid before getting rubber-stamped. If the patent office can’t properly vet applications, the office should be closed as ineffective or worse.
If Blackboard wants to recoup some karma, they should sign the patent(s) over to an impartial body, ensuring that the patent is used only as a first strike protection to prevent evildoers from obtaining said patent and obliterating an entire marketplace.
So… Who’s the best candidate to be handed the patent? IMS? IEEE? Creative Commons? UN?
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Comment trackback: Blackboard’s Patents
Current patent law, especially with regards to technologies like this, needs to be changed. It just seems like the people granting patents don't even understand what they're granting. (OK – I know it's not that bad, but still)
Take the recent patent Friendster was granted on various aspects of social networking (http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/07/07/friendster-awarded-patent-on-social-networking/)
The patent is obviously too general and too far reaching. Read further down, and you'll find a commenter who did some searching and found loads of similar "conceptual" patents granted, including one for Xerox, who owns a patent that covers electronic bulletin boards.
Thankfully, most of these companies have not chosen to act on enforcing these patents, probably because they're worried about the bad publicity/legal costs that would come from ligitation. Though IANAL, that's my take on it. As you said, once shareholders start tightening the vice grips, all bets are off.
Take the recent story about RIM and all of their patent nightmares, thanks to one greedy company down in the US. The original intent of patents was to protect innovation – if people copy your idea, then there's no incentive to innovate. However, today patent laws are being used for the exact opposite purpose.
"…So… Who's the best candidate to be handed the patent? IMS? IEEE? Creative Commons? UN?…"
That's easy. Educause.
…but it's too late for that. They have already sued and so have announced their intentions.
right. and the couldn’t go back to their shareholders with a “Karma Restoration Plan” either
As much as I don’t like the idea of patents on ideas, it appears that the process of accumulating patent arsenals is just “doing business” for many companies. Is it possible that open source communities need to consider this as a cost of doing business? Is an open source license enough to ensure that your product is safe from a flawed patent system?