begin oe_protect.scr
Roy Schestowitz <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> espoused:
<snip>
>
> It may seem self-evident that virtual classrooms should closely
> resemble real ones. But a major education software company contends it
> wasn't always so obvious. And now, in a move that has shaken up the
> e-learning community, Blackboard Inc. has been awarded a patent
> establishing its claims to some of the basic features of the software
> that powers online education.
> -------------
> End quote
>
> http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060827/ap_on_hi_te/e_learning_dispute
>
> See also:
>
> http://money.netscape.cnn.com/story.jsp?floc=FF-APO-1333&idq=/ff/story/0001%2F20060827%2F1457575948.htm&sc=1333
> http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory?id=2362437
> http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/08/02/1217219
>
> This may appear to be just a new, obnoxious example of patent trolling
> (in this case by Blackboard). However, there are connections between
> Blackboard and Microsoft:
>
> http://www.blackboard.com/company/press/release.aspx?id=510542
> http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/751121
> http://www.bizjournals.com/washington/stories/2001/04/23/daily13.html
> http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/archives/2001/12/04/news/4013.shtml
> http://chronicle.com/free/v48/i13/13a02701.htm
>
> Quote:
> ----------
> Charlene A. Douglas isn't surprised that Microsoft wants to get into
> the booming business
> of online-software systems for higher education, or that it has
> recently formed a close alliance with Blackboard, a company whose
> software helps colleges put their courses on the Internet....
>
> In what the two companies call a "preferred relationship," Microsoft
> will promote Blackboard to its education customers and Blackboard will
> suggest that its clients use the Microsoft Windows operating system to
> run Blackboard on their servers to take advantage of special features
> available only to Microsoft users.
> ----------
> End quote
>
> See also:
> http://www.marketwire.com/mw/release_html_b1?release_id=98283
Why innovate when you can do this instead? It's so much easier to
manipulate than to innovate - this is just a matter of exercising the
extremely broken USPTO system to shore up existing monopolies and
prevent competition. Isn't that what patents were for? Wait for
competition to emerge and then patent their whole business area so that
they can't trade?
--
| Mark Kent -- mark at ellandroad dot demon dot co dot uk |
People who have what they want are very fond of telling people who haven't
what they want that they don't want it.
-- Ogden Nash
|
|
