This is a guest post by Jim Farmer Two years ago while speaking at the Desire2Learn Users Conference, CEO John Baker learned that Blackboard Inc. accused Desire2Learn of infringing a Blackboard patent. Following a jury’s decision and failed attempts to reach a settlement, the dispute is now headed for appeal at the U.S. Court of […]
Desire2Learn
Desire2Learn Conference Summary
I had fun at the D2L conference last week. As usual, I don’t have as much time as I would like to blog about the details, so this highlight post will have to do: Conference attendance was good. There were about 550 attendees this year, up from about 400 last year. I had chance to […]
Victory for D2L, Opportunity for Blackboard
Well, my flight was delayed, so I missed the opportunity to witness D2L’s court victory celebration at Graceland. And I’m sure that they celebrated tonight The court denied Blackboard’s motion for contempt, meaning that Desire2Learn version 8.3 was found to be “more than colorably different” than the infringing version of the software and the court […]
Going to the D2L Conference
Correction: My presentation with Bill Lee is on Wednesday, not Thursday. I’ll be going to the Desire2Learn conference Monday night through Wednesday morning this coming week. I’ll be on a lunch panel on Tuesday (I finally will meet Stephen Downes F2F) and will be doing a presentation on IMS Learning Information Services and Oracle/D2L integration […]
Blackboard Inc. Shows Deep Compassion for Desire2Learn Customers
As expected, Blackboard has taken Desire2Learn back to court, claiming that 8.3 still infringes and charging them with contempt. Interestingly, the news of this showed up simultaneously in Inside Higher Education, THE Journal, and The Chronicle. It looks like Blackboard may have something to say that they want to make sure we all hear. What […]
D2L Resolves Current Patent Burdens
According to the latest entry on D2L’s patent blog, D2L has payed the court judgment plus post-judgment interest in full and has also migrated all customers to version 8.3 of their software, which they claim does not infringe on the patent. There’s been some FUD flying around about whether D2L could handle the financial impact […]
Blackboard and Desire2Learn Fight Over Venue for Next Round
*Sigh.* At some point I hope the world–and the Blackboard case–will slow down enough so that I’ll actually have time to blog about something else. Here’s the latest from D2L’s patent blog: April, 2008 – Matthew Small, Blackboard’s Chief Legal Officer: “Certainly we believe the reexamination process is a healthy process. It serves to generally […]