Green Tea Ice Cream

Another episode in the ongoing black comedy of US patent law. In summary, back in 1999, Blackboard quietly filed a set of patents that attempted to lock down systems of e-learning in general (for a plain English summary see No Education Patents who kind of wear their hearts on their collective sleeve). What happened next? Blackboard filed suit for patent infringement (more than you could ever want to know here) against a Canadian company called Desire2Learn whilst the open source (e.g. Moodle) VLE movement watched and worried about whether Blackboard would come for them next and the education community fretted as to whether the massive investment made in alternative VLEs to Blackboard would prove to be so much wasted energy.

Eighteen months later (and most likely an appalling amount of legal fees), a jury finds against 35 of the 44 patents - but upholds the remaining 9. Some are calling this a significant victory for D2L (though I’d be a teeny bit worried about the $3 million dollars the jury awarded). Still, it’s only the first round - this one could run for years. Meanwhile, it isn’t winning Blackboard any friends in HE - and they may even be losing customers. As for Blackboard, they don’t appear to have anything to say on the subject.