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Blackboard pledges no action against open source courseware (LinuxWorld)
LinuxWorld covers
a pledge from courseware vendor Blackboard to not enforce its patents
against open source and homegrown software systems. "The pledge is
intended to quell the anger and outrage which flared up last year after the
Washington D.C. software vendor, the leader in course management software
for education, announced it had been awarded U.S. patents for parts of its
software. Course management applications are widely deployed in education;
many are homegrown, and more recently, open source projects, such as that
sponsored by the Sakai Foundation, are emerging."
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Blackboard pledges no action against open source courseware (LinuxWorld) Posted Feb 2, 2007 19:38 UTC (Fri) by jlgreer1 (guest, #29948) [Link] Why did they go to the effort and expense to gain a patent?
Blackboard pledges no action against open source courseware (LinuxWorld) Posted Feb 2, 2007 19:58 UTC (Fri) by johnkarp (subscriber, #39285) [Link] The third paragraph of the article gives a reason the patent might stillbe valuable to them. :)
Blackboard pledges no action against open source courseware (LinuxWorld) Posted Feb 2, 2007 22:23 UTC (Fri) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] I thought that you had to enforce a patent, or you'd lose it. I wouldn't trust a pledge like this.
Blackboard pledges no action against open source courseware (LinuxWorld) Posted Feb 2, 2007 22:55 UTC (Fri) by pjdc (guest, #6906) [Link] I think that's trademarks.
Blackboard pledges no action against open source courseware (LinuxWorld) Posted Feb 2, 2007 23:44 UTC (Fri) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link] Ya that is my understanding also.. Generally speaking you have to take a active role towards trademarks, but with patents you can be selective in how you go about it.
Same thing with copyrights, for the most part.
Of course I figure if you let a patent slide for years knowingly and wait for a product to become big before sueing them then that will probably reflect badly on you when time comes to collect damages.
Blackboard pledges no action against open source courseware (LinuxWorld) Posted Feb 3, 2007 0:09 UTC (Sat) by njs (subscriber, #40338) [Link] Sure, it reflects badly on you, and you probably won't be able to convince the court to grant you damages for all the past, unknowing, infringement of your patent (search terms: "laches", "estoppel").
But all that has nothing to do with whether the patent remains enforceable against future behavior -- now that you've come out of the woodwork, everyone has to either stop infringing on your patent or else buy a license from you. And, of course, if your patent is on a basic technology, or on a particular technology that has become entrenched (*cough*GIF*cough*)... "stop infringing" may simply not be an option.
This happens all the time.
Blackboard pledges no action against open source courseware (LinuxWorld) Posted Feb 3, 2007 11:22 UTC (Sat) by tzafrir (subscriber, #11501) [Link] So Linux (the kernel) should not use http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RCU then, right?
Blackboard pledges no action against open source courseware (LinuxWorld) Posted Feb 3, 2007 12:26 UTC (Sat) by dlang (subscriber, #313) [Link] except that IBM has granted a license for Linux to use it
Blackboard pledges no action against open source courseware (LinuxWorld)
Blackboard pledges no action against open source courseware (LinuxWorld) Posted Feb 3, 2007 16:55 UTC (Sat) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] You can not grant the license for Linux and not grant the same license for other GPL software - GPL forbids this. Here is the difference between Microsoft's grant^H^H^H^H^Hconvenant and IBM's grant...
Blackboard pledges no action against open source courseware (LinuxWorld) Posted Feb 5, 2007 22:56 UTC (Mon) by i3839 (subscriber, #31386) [Link] True, and IBM knows that. But I do hope that they granted it for all GPL applications for other reasons.
Blackboard pledges no action against open source courseware (LinuxWorld) Posted Feb 2, 2007 22:58 UTC (Fri) by johnkarp (subscriber, #39285) [Link] An analogy:
You are a landowner, and one day someone builds a shed on your land. If
The fact that they are explicitly giving permission means that they are
IANAL
Blackboard pledges no action against open source courseware (LinuxWorld) Posted Feb 2, 2007 23:20 UTC (Fri) by arcticwolf (guest, #8341) [Link] Because analogies work so well in law...
Seriously, pjdc above got it right; it's trademarks where "use it or lose it" applies, not patents. A patent, for the most part, grants you exclusive rights for a predetermined amount of time (20 years), and that's that; you don't have to do anything to keep those rights, and you can't do anything to keep them after the 20 years are up. At least that's the theory.
The only thing that might happen if you know about someone's infringement on your patents but don't do anything about it is that you might receive less money if you take the whole thing to court, but that's not something anyone (on either side) should count on, either.
Of course, IANAL as well, so you should disregard everything I just said.
Blackboard pledges no action against open source courseware (LinuxWorld) Posted Feb 3, 2007 2:17 UTC (Sat) by rahvin (subscriber, #16953) [Link] Your analogy is quite quite wrong. Obtaining ownership of occupied (squated) land requires that the owner know about the squatter as you suggested but also requires a huge number of other factors. The squatter must pay the taxes on the land (and not the original owner), must make substantial improvements to the land and there needs to generally be an exchange of some sort of compensation to the owner of the land (either improvement in value of the remaining land or services rendered) and finally it has to take place for 5 years (that means all of the above conditions need to occur yearly for 5 consecutive years). In the real world it's nearly impossible to obtain ownership of real property by squatting. Sure the conditions stated above are going to vary a little between different localities and will depend on the states laws where the squatting takes place (in the brownfields in the Midwest the laws have made it much easier to squat on a delinquent owner.) But again, you have to take a real risk financially that the owner won't step forward in the 4th year and kill your squatting plan outright and all the property taxes you paid along with the improvements will be for naught.
As others have pointed out, trademark is an area that requires direct and immediate defense, patents are more like real property and in fact aren't eligible for the squatting provisions that real property has in common law.
Blackboard pledges no action against open source courseware (LinuxWorld) Posted Feb 6, 2007 16:04 UTC (Tue) by cpm (subscriber, #3554) [Link] I'm clueless on applicability of the analogy to patent law, but in the case of real property, Adverse possession (squatters rights) vary state by state.It usually breaks down to the squatter holds the property as their own for a set period of time, if unchallenged, can then claim the land as their own.
Then they can pay taxes on it. They don't necessary have to assume tax liability, because until the statutory time period is satisfied, it's
If the 'real' owner of the property denies them access before the statutory
It's really a common sense thing. Not as vile as folks often portray it.
For instance, I own some land, My neighbor builds a garage and drives across a corner of my land to get to their garage. I build a gate a lock it
Now, they decide to cut the lock and continue accessing their garage. I don't do anything about it, like bring a suit for trespass or relock the gate, and they do this for the number of years required to satisfy the statute, they now can claim an adverse easement. It's their driveway now.
Stuff like this happens often. Land law here in most of the states in the US accept that folks need to use the land. If no one challenges that use,
neighbors, what are ya gonna do?
Blackboard pledges no action against open source courseware (LinuxWorld) Posted Feb 6, 2007 16:17 UTC (Tue) by cpm (subscriber, #3554) [Link] I just read the wikipedia page on adverse possession, and it's really good.
An example they brought up, that I was aware of, but didn't think to comment on, was that it works the other way too. (This I've dealt with first hand).
Meaning, someone has a lawful easement (non-possessory right in land) to their garage, across my land, and I decide to park an old and rusty school
Note that this is the reason why some of us get really testy if folks
see also the Groklaw story ("Novell II?") Posted Feb 3, 2007 1:12 UTC (Sat) by stevenj (guest, #421) [Link] See the Groklaw report for more info and another perspective. One troubling claim:Blackboard, then, appears to be attempting to place restrictions on GPL'd code by means of its nonassertion pledge, particularly as explained in the FAQ, which is incorporated by reference.
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