Blackboard Win Becomes A Loss. Maybe.

Posted by Kenneth Ronkowitz on



I wrote briefly that Blackboard had won its patent infringement suit against rival Desire2Learn back in late February. But then not so long after, the patent itself was rejected by the United States Patent
and Trademark Office on reexamination.

Legal battles and the system being what they are, even that is not final. Blackboard plans to keep at their case, but Desire2Learn and the
Software Freedom Law Center see the latest decision by the USPTO as a victory.

Rather than play legal interpreter here, I'll recommend that you read an interview with Blackboard Chief Legal Officer Matthew Small

posted today by Campus Technology. It gets into Blackboard's "Alcorn" patent and this "reexamination" in more detail.

As David Nagel says in his preface to the transcript, "...there are subtleties involved here that simply can't be summarized--subtleties in the patent law, in the history of software patents, in the arguments involved for and against Blackboard's patent, and in the claims in Blackboard's patent itself."

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