I have been following the reaction to the BlackBoard patent closely and I am struck by the fact that I can't find anyone defending BlackBoard's actions.

I have seen some people explain why they understand that patents are important and why they think BlackBoard feels compelled to patent their work, but I haven't seen a single instance of someone saying...

"...BlackBoard did the right thing by getting this patent and suing Desire2Learn..."

... except BlackBoard, of course.

Now, they're a big company and they don't need anyone to stick up for them, but when you own 80% of a marketplace and have over 3000 customers, you would think that someone would stand up and say something nice about you.

I did some Google searches for "defending BlackBoard" and such and most of the hits were along the line of "I'm not defending BlackBoard...".

This is very telling. Even SCO and Microsoft have their defenders, shills, syncophants and lobbyists.

Is BlackBoard's customer base that tepid?

I'm stunned.