United States Patent & Trademark Office orders re-examination of Blackboard Patent

Updated 26/1/2007, and 27/1/2007

Earlier today the US Patent and Trade Mark Office assented to the Software Freedom Law Centre's 17/11/2006 ex parte request for the re-examination  of Blackboard Inc.'s Patent Number 6988138.

The odds were that the request would be granted, so little should be read into the decision. The re-examination may now take anything up to 2 years to complete.

You can track progress on Desire2Learn's inter partes re-examination request from this link on the USPTO web site, and you may be interested in this long current perspective on the Blackboard Patent, by Dave Nagel, based on interviews with Blackboard's Matt Small and the Software Freedom Law Centre's Richard Fontana.

Note. Other posts about the Blackboard patent:

• 1 February 2007 - Blackboard issues "Patent Pledge";
• 25 January 2007 - United States Patent & Trademark Office orders re-examination of Blackboard Patent;
• 9 December 2006 - Two contrasting views about software patents. A debate between Eben Moglen and Blackboard's Matt Small;
• 2 December 2006 - Blackboard: two separate re-examination requests to the US Patent and Trade Mark Office; and an application to the Court from Desire2Learn for a stay in proceedings;
• 27 October 2006 - EDUCAUSE on Blackboard: "patenting a community creation is anathema to our culture";
• 16 October 2006 -  John Mayer interviews various lawyers with patent knowhow;
• 10 September 2006 - The new "post-patent" environment for e-learning: a perspective. Guest contribution by Jim Farmer;
• 9 September 2006 - Blackboard's work for IMS;
• 8 August 2006 - Did the US Department of Justice know about the patent when it cleared Blackboard's acquisition of Web CT?;
• 26 July 2006 - Blackboard's US Patent 6988138.