There’s a blog post update from Desire2Learn on the latest back and forth between them and Blackboard over the patents. (Remember, there’s more than one patent now.) Here’s the latest, as near as I can follow it:
- On the original ‘138 patent suit in U.S. courts, there’s no word yet on any appeal by Blackboard of their recent defeat in the appeals court. There should be a final ruling soon from the USPTO. My guess is that Blackboard will let this suit die, even as they pursue other lines.
- Relatedly, the action by the US International Trade Commission has been suspended pending the final results of the ‘138 litigation.
- Meanwhile in Canada, litigation continues on the Canadian version of the original patent, as Blackboard continues to sue D2L there.
- There’s some wrangling back and forth in the United States of Blackboard’s continuation patent. D2L pre-emptively filed for a declaratory judgment in Maryland in the hopes of heading off a suit on that patent. Blackboard has filed a motion to dismiss while simultaneously filing an infringement suit in the East District of Texas, also moving to consolidate it with another patent suit against D2L. Since I’m out of the business of reading patents, I’m not 100% sure what these are about, but as far as I know they are essentially extensions/revisions of the original patent.
Oy.
Thanks for the update, always appreciated.
Would be interesting to have an ongoing tally of how much BlackBoard and others are spending on this litigation. I’m imagining something like the national dept “clock” in Times Square ;-).