December 2006 — News
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Blackboard, SFLC Go Head to Head at Sakai Conference
"The present reexamination is a defensive response to an aggressive behavior," he said. "It's a part of a measured deterrence, which will commence with the reexam we have begun and will escalate as necessary until all possibility of aggression is extinct. The free world is peaceable, but it is not pacifist. Our position is simple: We respond to threats intelligently, rapidly and at low cost because we are threatened by the biggest, richest, most powerful and most aggressive entities in the world, by which I do not mean Blackboard. And it is our responsibility to see to it that the free world's ability to meet threats rapidly and with all necessary force is maintained. If Blackboard gives us an opportunity to demonstrate deterrence in an exemplary fashion, we will take it. If Blackboard offers us peace, we will take that instead gladly."
Matthew Small, however, said he doesn't think there should be war between Blackboard and open-source developers: "There's a little bit of head scratching going on at home about the current debate between Sakai and Blackboard over the patent. We don't want Sakai to worry about the Blackboard patent at all. We want to be friendly and working together because there's a lot we can accomplish together. I feel that Sakai is fighting a war that we don't think we're in." He added later: "I hate to see our two organizations arguing over it because we really should be focused on the mission of making it better and interoperable."
He further defended Backboard's patent by saying that it's a narrow one. "Blackboard is not claiming to have invented the [course management system]; we're not claiming to have invented e-learning. I would be offended at the suggestion of that, and I think some people originally thought this patent was just that and were offended, but that's not the case. It's actually very narrow."
However, the SFLC's Moglen said, "A narrow patent is dangerous if it's used in a dangerous way, as a broad patent is. The problem with narrow patents is if you collect enough of them they become a clog for the feet of anybody who wants to do anything at all, just as one broad patent would be."
He also said that the patent never should have been granted and added that Backboard should have sat quiet with it, rather than using it as the basis for an infringement suit. "This is a piece of arrogance by a small holder who should have sat silent with a patent he never should have gotten and has instead decided to threaten people with it."
Small said the only threat from Blackboard is to commercial developers who come in and "pick up where Blackboard left off," and then come in with a competitive, commercial product. Hence the suit against Desire2Learn, said Small.
"[There's] nothing to stop a dozen people and a million dollars from going out with the current development tools, picking up where we left off and building a competitive product and going head to head, leveraging all of that invention that came before it. I think if someone's doing that for a profit, directly competing, it is appropriate to ask for a reasonable royalty. And that is the current standard among software companies."
