Add as a preferred source on Google


Blackboard Trial Against Desire2Learn Goes to Court

  • By Dian Schaffhauser
  • 02/14/08
##AUTHORSPLIT##<--->

Just a week after higher education software maker Blackboard announced "tremendous" financial results for the year, it is finally facing off in a small-town Texas court against rival Desire2Learn in a patent dispute over e-learning software. Blackboard is seeking $17 million in lost revenue as well as an injunction against the company, which is based in Canada.

Immediately after receiving a patent on its course management system in 2006, the larger company filed suit against Desire2Learn, claiming patent infringement.

Many participants in the e-learning community charged that the patent award was overly broad and ignored previous offerings in the e-learning space. The response became so heated that Blackboard eventually issued a "legally binding" guarantee promising never to take legal action against participants in three open-source projects, Moodle, Sakai, and ATutor.

For its part, Desire2Learn has challenged the patent. But no decision has been made yet by the federal patent office on the validity of the original claim.

According to a report in The Chronicle of Higher Education Blackboard president, Michael Chasen, reiterated that point on day one of the trial, stating that "his company had no intention of suing colleges that use open-source software to create their own course-management systems."

Desire2Learn has around 500 clients in the United States, compared with Blackboard's 2,400.

Get daily news from THE Journal's RSS News Feed

About the author: Dian Schaffhauser covers high tech, business and higher education for a number of publications. Contact her at [email protected].

Proposals for articles and tips for news stories, as well as questions and comments about this publication, should be submitted to David Nagel, executive editor, at [email protected].

About the Author

Dian Schaffhauser is a former senior contributing editor for 1105 Media's education publications THE Journal, Campus Technology and Spaces4Learning.

Featured

  • teacher using laptop

    Common Sense Media Launches Free Advanced AI Course for Teachers

    Common Sense Media is offering a free Advanced ChatGPT Course for K-12 educators, designed to deepen AI literacy and classroom practice.

  • elementary school students using laptops displaying AI symbols and educational icons in a colorful classroom setting

    Khan Academy Revamps Platform for School Districts

    Khan Academy has reimagined its Khan Academy Districts platform, the paid partnership program that offers strategic implementation tools, data, and services for optimizing the use of Khan Academy district-wide.

  • robot brain with various technology and business icons

    Google Cloud Study: Early Agentic AI Adopters See Better ROI

    Google Cloud has released its second annual ROI of AI study, finding that 52% of enterprise organizations now deploy AI agents in production environments. The comprehensive survey of 3,466 senior leaders across 24 countries highlights the emergence of a distinct group of "agentic AI early adopters" who are achieving measurably higher returns on their AI investments.

  • Analyst or Scientist uses a computer and dashboard for analysis of information on complex data sets on computer.

    Anthropic Study Tracks AI Adoption Trends Across Countries, Industries

    Adoption of AI tools is growing quickly but remains uneven across countries and industries, with higher-income economies using them far more per person and companies favoring automated deployments over collaborative ones, according to a recent study from Anthropic.