So, it today’s Chronicle of Higher Education, Marc Perry wrote a brief article about the “irony” of D2L suing over a course management contract in Utah. It’s ironic that the author could not find a distinction between a procedural bidding process that D2L thought was violated, and Blackboard attempting to run all LMS companies out of business by predatory patenting. Yes, all lawsuits are exactly the same, and Desire2Learn should never, ever, sue someone again because they were critical of Blackboards lawsuit happiness. For future reference, patenting something you cannot patent, then suing people who “violate” the patent is equal to suing someone who you think violated the procedure of a public bid. Way to go critical thinking.
OK, now that’s out of my system, I don’t think D2L should have sued but should have just walked away from it – sure it’s half a million dollars – but in the long run if the start-up can’t handle it, they’ll collapse and one of the big LMS players will swoop in and clean it up.