Thomson Learning Makes a Statement on EduPatents?

Here is a press release by Thomson Learning about their decision to become a Sakai commercial affiliate. It has all the usual statements about working with the community, supporting open standards, and so on. But what caught my attention, down in the sixth paragraph of a six-paragraph press release, was the following statement by Thomson Learning’s Chief Technology Officer Ray Lowry:

In addition, Thomson Learning is glad to see one of its key business partners, Blackboard, Inc., making a move in the right direction to engage the open source community.

This has to be a reference to Blackboard’s recent patent pledge. But what does it mean? Is it a quiet endorsement? A sly dig? A little of both? If I’m not mistaken, Thomson and Blackboard do indeed have a very close business relationship. I doubt they would make this statement without careful consideration first. I find the company’s decision to comment on the edupatent issue in an unrelated press release to be very interesting.

Michael Feldstein is the founder of e-Literate who currently works as the Senior Program Manager for MindTap at Cengage Learning. For more information, see his profile page.

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