Top all-time · #3574
e-Literate
Personal blog · mfeldstein.comother
e-Literate is a personal blog at mfeldstein.com. Since 2008, 22 different Hacker News readers have linked it 25 times. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-06-29, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (12) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link e-Literate for commentary on online education and the Blackboard patent dispute, including its analysis of the 44 patent claims being invalidated. Several comments simply cite its posts as sources.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 12 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Present is Prologue
Most-linked posts?
- /all-44-blackboard-patent-claims-invalidated-by-uspto/4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2009-02-11
- /images/uploads/Blackboard_Patent_Claims.pdf2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2009-04-03
What Hacker News says?
I wouldn't call them a patent troll, but their patent's claims ( http://mfeldstein.com/images/uploads/Blackboard_Patent_Claim... via Wikipedia) are on the level of Amazon's one-click patent. And Blackboard HAS used them offensively (unsuccessfully, I might add). The patent was eventually overturned, but at non-insignificant cost to all parties involved. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackboard_Inc.#Blackboard_lega.…
Comment linking /images/uploads/Blackboard_Patent_Claims.pdf
on “Google Releases CloudCourse - Blackboard killer?”Submitted When Education-Technology Startups Fail as a story · 38 points
HN discussionIn my humble opinion, blackboard and the like (moodle, sakai...) are mainly useful for core classes that have a lot of students taking quizzes or writing papers or doing readings. Faculty and instructors, I think, sometimes forget when they have academic freedom to teach their course whatever way they see best (sometimes they really don't have this choice though, like for much government/military/corporate training)…
Comment linking /emerging-trends-in-lms-ed-tech-market/
on “I develop free software because of CUNY and Blackboard”Submitted Why higher education is in trouble, in one graph as a story · 12 points
HN discussionA Wikipedia citation [1] states that all 44 patent claims were non-finally rejected on March 25th, 2008 upon re-examination. Does anyone know what ever came of this? [1] http://mfeldstein.com/all-44-blackboard-patent-claims-invali...
Comment linking /all-44-blackboard-patent-claims-invalidated-by-uspto/
on “Open letter to Blackboard: $1M to charity if you drop patent litigation”Submitted Blackboard Replaces CEO Jay Bhatt: What Happened as a story · 3 points
HN discussion#6,988,138 Internet-based education support system and methods http://www.google.com/patents?id=RX94AAAAEBAJ&dq=6,988,1... In plain english: http://mfeldstein.com/images/uploads/Blackboard_Patent_Claim... * I'm a BB competitor, so it's in my area (that is, I hope I don't get sued)
Comment linking /images/uploads/Blackboard_Patent_Claims.pdf
on “Open letter to Blackboard: $1M to charity if you drop patent litigation”Submitted Educational Publishers Appear to be Supporting SOPA as a story · 3 points
HN discussionI think some of these have been invalidated: http://mfeldstein.com/all-44-blackboard-patent-claims-invali...
Comment linking /all-44-blackboard-patent-claims-invalidated-by-uspto/
on “Ask HN: Industries Ripe For Disruption?”Submitted Fear and Loathing in the Moodle Community as a story · 2 points
HN discussionYes, an analysis here: http://mfeldstein.com/blackboard_patents_the_lms/ The executive summary is "any groupware that involves student interaction."
Comment linking /blackboard_patents_the_lms/
on “Instructure Launches To Root Blackboard Out Of Universities”Submitted Where xMOOCs and Adaptive Analytics Both Fail (For Now) as a story · 2 points
HN discussionThere's a strong team behind a new competitor to Blackbord, http://www.instructure.com/ . Decent article about them: http://mfeldstein.com/instructure-canvas-a-new-lms-entrant/
Comment linking /instructure-canvas-a-new-lms-entrant/
on “Ugly Software (like Blackboard) Gives Education a Bad Name”Submitted Instructure Goes Open Source as a story · 2 points
HN discussionThey ended up losing a lot of those claims recently if I recall correctly, but that being said I agree for a long time it did and still does hurt the LMS environment. http://mfeldstein.com/all-44-blackboard-patent-claims-invali... (2008)
Comment linking /all-44-blackboard-patent-claims-invalidated-by-uspto/
on “Ask HN: Cases where software patents have prevented progress?”Submitted Why Not Go to a Party School? as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSakai continues to put out releases on a fairly orderly schedule, but it's lost several of the core, founding institutions as their IT departments move away from customized FOSS software hosted in local datacenters to SAAS software hosted by commercial providers. For example: Indiana University was a core member of the Sakai Foundation that was rumored to have a $1mm+ budget devoted to heavily customizing Sakai for…
Comment linking /unizin-indiana-universitys-secret-new-learning-ecosystem-coalition/
on “The Reeducation of Blackboard, Everyone's Classroom Pariah”Submitted Mobile-first learning platform EmpoweredU acquired by Qualcomm as a story · 1 points
HN discussionMobile is important to students, and I like the time planning focus. OA managed not to mention that little issue about patents some years ago which made me smile... http://mfeldstein.com/all-44-blackboard-patent-claims-invali... UK: many colleges use the open source Moodle as a 'virtual learning environment'. A tad less clunky than classic Blackboard in my personal opinion. Universities mostly have something and las…
Comment linking /all-44-blackboard-patent-claims-invalidated-by-uspto/
on “The Reeducation of Blackboard, Everyone's Classroom Pariah”Submitted Why VCs get ed tech wrong as a story · 1 points
HN discussionNot on Online Education - but I have done a fair amount of work in the industry and this is one of the more referenced books: https://www.amazon.com/Smartest-Kids-World-They-That/dp/1451... This is a good blog on the state of online education: http://mfeldstein.com/ And a really good article: https://www.fastcompany.com/3062958/how-google-is-schooling-... To answer why top Universities bet on MOOCs: this is partly a…
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: Books on the future of online education?”Submitted Six Ways the edX Announcement Gets Automated Essay Grading Wrong as a story · 1 points
HN discussionI can't seem to find an overview of all of them, but here are the ones Blackboard said they wouldn't enforce against pure open source software. http://www.blackboard.com/patent/FAQ_013107.htm I believe that their patents together meant that any commercial Blackboard-like software was infringing on their IP. This is a list of companies that were probably infringing on Blackboard's fortunately invalid patents. http://…
Comment linking /the_blackboard_patent_claims_in_plain_english/
on “All 44 Blackboard Patent Claims Invalidated”Submitted DIY U: The Modern Guild at Work as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Why All LMS’s Are ‘Pretty Good/Bad’ as a story · 1 points
HN discussion
