[Moderator]

Inside Higher Ed reports on Blackboard's latest loss, which is good news for universities and colleges who use open source software because we can be sure that despite their disclaimers, Blackboard would certainly move against open source courseware if they succeed against Desire2Learn and other private companies. Blackboard's loss is also an affirmation of common sense since anyone with long-time experience in course management software knew that Blackboard's patent claims were simply assertions, not valid original contributions to courseware delivery methods. ____JH

____
"Both companies appealed the parts of the case they'd lost to theU.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which has nationwidejurisdiction over U.S. patent claims. Its highly technical decisionupheld the lower court's conclusion that Blackboard's claims 1-35 wereinvalid. But the three-judge panel rejected the lower court's findingthat Blackboard's patented learning system had originated the approachof giving a single user with a single log-in multiple roles, such asbeing a teacher in one course and a student in another."

"Theappeals panel embraced Desire2Learn's argument that such technologyexisted in 'prior art,' in this case previously existing coursemanagement systems such as Serf and CourseInfo 1.5. The appeals courtessentially ruled that the lower court judge had framed Blackboard'sclaim incorrectly for the jury, said Bruce T. Wieder,a lawyer for the Washington firm of Dow Lohnes who was not involved inthe case. Having done so, the Federal Circuit court "could have said,'This is how you should have interpreted it, you go look at it again,'" Wieder said. "But instead, the court said, 'Since we've seen what wasargued, we now can say that the district court wouldn't have come toany conclusion,' and declared those claims invalid."




More...