Blackboard Patents Rejected in "Non-final" Determination

Mar 28, 2008 at 10:19 pm, Jared Stein

Campus Technology reports that all 44 of Blackboard’s LMS-related patent claims were rejected by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office based on 10 issues raised in a reexamination request filed by the Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) in November, 2006.

Blackboard has two months to respond to the USPTO’s determination, and we can bet they will bankroll as big a response as possible. Surely their recent victory against Desire2Learn for patent infringement will fuel their strength of will to fight. For my part, Bb’s lawsuit leaves me wondering if allowing the lawsuit to stand trial while a USPTO reexamination request was under review was not just premature, but also extremely wasteful of our tax dollars and court time.

4 Responses to “Blackboard Patents Rejected in "Non-final" Determination”

  1. John Krutsch Says:

    BlackBoard is already claiming that the ruling does not affect the current D2L lawsuit:
    http://tinyurl.com/yo3mev

    March 29th, 2008 at 12:51 am
  2. Jared M. Stein Says:

    Blackboard states, “It has no effect on the validity of the patent, the lawsuit between Blackboard and Desire2Learn or the pending injunction against Desire2Learn.”This statement seems schizophrenic in the context of the USPTO’s reexamination, which rejected all 44 claims, but maybe that’s just a matter of course.

    The Software Freedom Law Center stated, “…the days that are going forward are not likely to change today’s result. This patent is dead.”If the patent reexamination, which admittedly is non-final, does move forward as SFLO is concluding, the lawsuit WILL be overturned, and the injunction may be withdrawn.

    March 29th, 2008 at 5:05 am
  3. Jared M. Stein Says:

    Barry Dahl posted up a podcast with patent attorney on his blog: desire2blog.blogspot.com/2008/04/

    April 2nd, 2008 at 9:50 pm
  4. ANGEL: A Corpse for Blackboard’s Corpulence | Flexknowlogy - Jared Stein on Education and Technology Says:

    [...] actions, twice since then the US Patent Office has rejected the original 44 patent claims, first in March of 2008 and again in April of this [...]

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