CALIOPOLIS

The Inquirer has the PDF (no story yet) of the law suit filed by BlackBoard on July 26, 2006 (same day they got their patent) for patent infringement. So much for goodwill, it’s going to be war and Desire2Learn is the front line.

This lawsuite has huge ramifications for the educational community – NOT just he ed-tech crowd either. On the front page of BlackBoard’s website is this blurb…

"…The Blackboard Academic Suiteâ„¢ enables institutions to embrace the full power of the Internet with access to any learning resource at any time from any place…"

They should probably add a qualifier now. How can you access the "full power of the Internet" if you are dealing with litigation fears and limitations of choice as a result?

This is just plain bad for everyone including BlackBoard and they really should re-think their strategy.