Blackboard's e-learning patent looks to be going down. The United States Patent and Trademark Office last week sent out a "non-final" determination on the reexamination of Blackboard's patent in which all of the claims on the patent were rejected. Blackboard still has a period of two months to respond to the determination.
We spoke with representatives from the two parties that filed for the reexamination of the patent: Desire2Learn and the Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC). Their comments follow. Blackboard itself chose to release a statement (approximately 3:30 p.m. PDT) rather than speak directly with us today, although we might have additional comments next week.
While Desire2Learn and the SFLC celebrated the decision, Blackboard said that its patent still stands, that the company does not intend to back down, and that the decision has no effect on Blackboard's patent infringement suit victory over Desire2Learn.
Source: Campus Technology online March 28, 2008
No comments:
Post a Comment