Blackboard Patent Reexamination: Response from the Sakai Foundation

Created by Catherine Howell (La Trobe University) on January 26, 2007

To update my post on the Blackboard patent, here is some more detail on the requested reexamination of the patent claim and the Sakai Foundation's response.

As Paul Erickson notes (thanks, Paul!), the news initially started bubbling up when the Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) announced that it has formally asked the Patent Office to reexamine and ultimately cancel all 44 claims of Blackboard's patent on e-learning systems.

The request has demonstrated the very real sense of unity and common purpose among the educational open source software community. It was filed on behalf of the Sakai Foundation (sakaiproject.org), the Moodle Community (moodle.org), and the ATutor Community (atutor.ca).

In their press release, the Sakai Foundation refers to the "the surrounding fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) being spread by Blackboard", and states: "We, the Sakai Foundation, consider the Blackboard patent to be a prime example of a bad patent in the area of educational software. It is a threat to open source developers, providers and users of educational software."

Joseph Hardin, Sakai Foundation Board Chairman, comments: "Blackboard would have done well to heed the recent recommendations of the Educause Board by placing the patent in the public domain and dropping all litigation. Since Blackboard has refused to follow these recommendations, we have taken steps to render this patent toothless."

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		Blackboard Patent Reexamination: Response from the Sakai Foundation Created by Catherine Howell (La Trobe University) on January 26, 2007 To update my post on the Blackboard patent, here is some more detail on the requested reexamination of the patent claim and the Sakai Foundation's response. As Paul Erickson notes (thanks, Paul!), the news initially started bubbling up when the Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) announced that it has formally asked the Patent Office to reexamine and ultimately cancel all 44 claims of Blackboard's patent on e-learning systems. The request has demonstrated the very real sense of unity and common purpose among the educational open source software community. It was filed on behalf of the Sakai Foundation (sakaiproject.org), the Moodle Community (moodle.org), and the ATutor Community (atutor.ca). In their press release, the Sakai Foundation refers to the "the surrounding fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) being spread by Blackboard", and states: "We, the Sakai Foundation, consider the Blackboard patent to be a prime example of a bad patent in the area of educational software. It is a threat to open source developers, providers and users of educational software." Joseph Hardin, Sakai Foundation Board Chairman, comments: "Blackboard would have done well to heed the recent recommendations of the Educause Board by placing the patent in the public domain and dropping all litigation. Since Blackboard has refused to follow these recommendations, we have taken steps to render this patent toothless." legal issues \| open_source \| OSS \| Patent \| Sakai \| Software Patents \| virtual learning environment \| VLE Catherine's blog Login or register to post comments 5165 reads
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