On 26th July 2006, Blackboard Inc. announced
(http://www.blackboard.com/company/press/release.aspx?id=887622)
that
they had been granted a US patent covering much of e-learning
technology (application filed in 2000). They simultaneously sued
competing LMS provider Desire2Learn for patent infringement
(http://www.immagic.com/eLibrary/ARCHIVES/GENERAL/USCOURTS/T060726C.pdf),
demonstrating their willingness to use this patent in anger to suppress
their competition in the LMS vendor space.
Blackboard's announcement also revealed that they have 30 patents
granted and pending worldwide, including in Australia
(http://blackfate.edublogs.org/),
Singa****e, Japan, Canada, and
elsewhere. Those patents appear to cover all manner of tools, from
embedded text editors in e-learning systems, to multi-language LMS
systems, and even modular system extensibility.
A wikipedia page is being developed that is collecting examples of
"prior art," in an attempt to contest Blackboard's patents.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_virtual_learning_environments).
This forum is full of educators, many of whom have a long association
with e-learning prior to the year 2000, when the patent was lodged, and
I'd encourage you to add your thoughts to that of other interested
educators (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/wwwedu/message/8876).
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