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Blackboard Patent Invalidated By Appellate Court

Posted by timothy on from the mechanism-for-doing-stuff-described-herein dept.

Arguendo writes "A federal appeals court ruled Monday that Blackboard Inc.'s patent on a learning management system is invalid in light of the inventors' own prior software product. We have previously discussed the patent and Blackboard's trial court victory against Desire2Learn. It's not completely over, but this is almost certainly the death knell for Blackboard's patent. If so inclined, you may read the appellate court's decision here (PDF) or on scribd."

6 of 142 comments (clear)

  1. Blackboard execs should all be killed by realmolo · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Along with the patent examiners, of course.

    If you look at the patents that Blackboard has, they basically make it *impossible* to have any kind of "intranet" site at an educational institution. Everything (almost literally everything) that you would want to have/do on a school's intranet, Blackboard has a patent for.

    It's fucking ridiculous, and if their patents are invalidated, everyone in the education industry will RUN AWAY from their product, which sucks.

    1. Re:Blackboard execs should all be killed by Admodieus · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I want to run away from their product even if the patents are not invalidated. They're all pieces of crap that rely heavily on Java applets and fail to support updates for browsers when they come out, like Firefox 3.5, Safari 4, etc. I remember two years ago, there was a period of time where they told users not to upgrade to Firefox 2 or IE7 because they didn't have support lined up for them yet.

      --
      "It's a reverse vampire...they....they crave the sun!"
    2. Re:Blackboard execs should all be killed by edremy · · Score: 4, Interesting
      Everybody already is running away. Check out the market share numbers- BB is on a serious decline, with most small schools like the one I work for ditching them for almost anything else.

      Sadly, we went for Angel, which has been bought out by BB so we need to do another switch. BB will be among the possible options we'll be putting out there for the committee, but given our previous miserable experience with them I'll be amazed if we pick it over either Moodle or Sakai.

      --
      "Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
  2. Yay. by Ralph+Spoilsport · · Score: 3, Interesting
    As a prof, I hate blackboard. It is the buggiest, stupidest, slowest education software I have ever had the misfortune to use.

    Hopefully this will kill them, and force TPTB to get something that actually works.

    --
    Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
  3. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  4. Dead company walking by HangingChad · · Score: 3, Interesting

    You know when some company with a totally crap product starts looking at their patent portfolio for survival...you know, like SCO...that they don't have much going for them. Instead of putting that time and money into making their products better, they put their best efforts into litigation. You know that's a red flag for any company.

    Can we please trade eastern district of Texas back to Mexico? That court is a plague on business and an anchor on innovation.

    --
    That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage