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Comment by jpwagner | Hacker News Reader

Blackboard is infamous for this. They hold patents for ridiculously vague definitions of web-based education...

And sue people like crazy to protect them...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackboard_Inc.#Blackboard_lega...

It takes more space on their wikipedia entry than their actual products.

That isn't surprising, since their products are pretty terrible. My undergrad school used Blackboard and whenever the prof for a class actually wanted to use it (not often) it was a huge pain in the ass. Maybe they should fire some lawyers and hire some developers...

I can attest to that. I had to use Blackboard too when I was attending college, and it was a major pain, so much so that a sizable number of my professors preferred to just use mailing lists instead.

As part of my college job I had to administer a small Blackboard installation. For one, it did not allow upgrading the Windows server it ran on before the Blackboard code had been adapted for each new Microsoft patch. It was a pain.

Those bullet points aren't all suits. There's one involving domain names which they won (clearly they were in the right there). There's the one this article talks about (which has been going on for a while and was ruled in their favor previously) and another which it doesn't show the result of but wasn't over patents.

I wouldn't say 1 patent suit makes them overly-litigous.

You should read the patent. It is absurd. One lawsuit this silly makes them overly-litigious in my book. Seriously, I don't know how their attorneys keep a straight face.

There is merit to what you both have said (Matt and Prophet) and I encourage you both to look at the situation from the other's point of view.

A lawsuit over an issued patent is never absurd. It's a necessary mechanism by which our society fosters innovation. You won't have nearly as much innovation without patents, and you won't have patents without enforcement.

The patent itself may be silly, and the beautiful part of the system is that it can be overturned. That happens very frequently.

This is just a case of eggs being broken to make an omelet.

According to that entry:

"On March 25, 2008, the US patent office issued a non-final action rejecting all 44 claims of Blackboard's patent."

So what is all the fuss about?

The fuss is that deep-pockets guys like Blackboard can stifle competition by suing the little guys, whose small profits get wiped out by lawyer fees before a court finally throws out the claims.

In other words: the big guys don't have to win (their law suits) to win (wipe out or scare off the competition).

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