Ryan Collins

🕹ī¸ Do Something Great! 😄

Tag: open source

  • USPTO overturns Blackboard’s 44 patent claims

    [Courtroom Drama][]
    [Creative Commons License][] photo credit: Erin
    Nealey    Desire2Learn is reporting that the United
    States Patent & Trademark Office has overturned all 44 of Blackboard’s
    patent claims:

    On March 25, the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office issued its Non-Final
    Action on the re-examination of the Blackboard Patent. We are studying
    the document, found here, but in short, the PTO has rejected all 44 of
    Blackboard’s claims. We caution that this is a NON-final action; both
    Blackboard and Desire2Learn will have an opportunity to comment before
    a final action will issue, and after that, the decision will be
    subject to appeals.

    This is good news, especially not only for Desire2Learn, but also users
    of all online coursework delivery systems. Although I’m torn on the idea
    of software patents, the ones awarded to Blackboard in my opinion did
    not pass the obviousness test. Blackboard has gone on record that they
    were not going to go after open source implementations like Moodle, but
    I can’t help to think that just the idea that Blackboard could sue would
    put a damper on some new Moodle installations.

    [Courtroom Drama]: http://www.flickr.com/photos/77421543@N00/2365885779/
    “Courtroom Drama”
    [Creative Commons License]: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/
    “Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License”