Tag Archive for 'alfred-essa'



The Blackboard Patent Crisis at Two and a Half Weeks

While marveling the events of the last several weeks, Jim Farmer suggested that it might be worthwhile to pause and reflect back on the sequence of events. I thought that was a good idea, so here it is. I don’t claim that it is any sense a definitive history. To the contrary, it’s just my […]

Conversation with My Own Imaginary Spinmeister

Me: Blackboard has an imaginary spinmeister! Oh NO!
Spinmeister: Oh, that guy. I wouldn’t worry too much about him. He was Joe Lieberman’s imaginary spinmeister. He’s not exactly the sharpest imaginary pencil in the imaginary box, if you know what I mean.
Me: But…their imaginary spinmeister said that this will all just blow over if they wait […]

A Good Visual Analysis of the Blackboard Patent Claims

Al Essa has taken my translation of the patent claims to the next level. It’s a very clear, useful, and succinct explanation of just what the patent says Blackboard is claiming to have invented. I don’t think it can be boiled down any simpler than this.

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Blackboard, Copyright, and Patents

Al Essa has a great post up that covers the basic differences between a copyright and a patent as well as laying the groundwork for a dissection of Blackboard’s claims (presumably forthcoming). In the meantime, I am in the process of translating the 44 claims in their patent into plain English. When you see what […]

The NOSE: Navigating OpenSource

Al Essa, MIT/Sloan School of Business’ CIO and the founding father of the Open Source dotLRN learning management platform, has a new (albeit goofily named) weblog about Open Source in higher ed (and related technology issues).
Check it out.

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