Blackboard’s patent on learning management system technologies has been overturned by the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The court ruled Monday in favor of Desire2Learn and invalidated some claims in patent No. 6,988,138, also known as the “Alcorn patent” or the “138 patent.”

[…] Blackboard made concessions to the open source community, releasing a legally binding pledge that it would never assert its patent claims against an open source developer, among other things. The pledge fell short of the SFLC’s demand for Blackboard to renounce the patent, however, and the move was greeted with a mixture of relief and continued outrage at Blackboard’s unwillingness to drop its suit against Desire2learn and unwillingness to renounce the patent claims.

Glad to see that an appellate court overturned Blackboard’s patent of Learning Management Systems. It will be interesting to see how Blackboard’s patent for “technology used for Internet-based education support systems and methods” is finally resolved.

Read the full Campus Technology article by David Nagel