Barry Dahl read the Sakai Foundation’s recent announcement about the Blackboard patent pretty closely and is concerned that it sounds like they think the fight is over. I completely understand why he interpreted it that way, but I read it a little differently. If you look closely at the specifics of the legal situation, the […]
Software-Freedom-Law-Center
Blackboard Fails Statistics 101
Blackboard has posted their response to the USPTO ruling. They make some claims about how this will impact the trial, which I’m not in a position to evaluate just yet. They mention that all of the claims in the re-examination request “were unsuccessfully raised by Desire2Learn during recent litigation,” which is irrelevant since these are […]
All 44 Blackboard Patent Claims Invalidated by USPTO
This just in: On March 25, the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office issued its Non-Final Action on the re-examination of the Blackboard Patent. We are studying the document, found here, but in short, the PTO has rejected all 44 of Blackboard’s claims. We caution that this is a NON-final action; both Blackboard and Desire2Learn will […]
Blackboard Inter Partes Determination Published
You can find the documentation here. The USPTO found 13 of Desire2Learn’s 14 claims to raise substantial new questions of patentability. However, the government did not a preliminary finding, as is usual with an Inter Partes challenge, because they are considering whether this challenge should be merged with the Ex Parte challenge filed by the […]
Ex Parte and Inter Partes Patent Re-Examination
As you know by now, the Blackboard patent has been challenged at the USPTO by separate requests filed by the SFLC and D2L respectively. SFLC filed what’s known as an ex parte request, while D2L filed what’s known as an inter partes request. I think it’s important for the community to become familiar with these […]
What the Sakai/Moodle/ATutor Re-Examination Request Really Means
By now you’ve probably seen that the Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) has filed a request to re-examine Blackboard’s patent with the USPTO on behalf of Sakai, Moodle, and ATutor. You may have also seen that D2L has filed a different kind of re-examination request with the USPTO. (SFLC’s request is what’s known as ex […]
Eben Moglen Weighs in on Blackboard
Here’s a late-breaking item from the Sakai Foundation: In the wake of recent efforts to limit the free and open sharing of innovation for online learning, the Sakai Foundation has retained the Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC), an organization directed by Eben Moglen and dedicated to providing advice and legal services to protect and advance […]