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Good News on the Patent Front

I don't have to tell the readers of this blog that I consider our (U.S.) legal system imperfect at best. Today, however, there's some promising news in the software patent wars. Blackboard (link intentionally left out) may actually lose its patents on the courseware management system, patents they received because they have high-powered lawyers, not because they were there first.

They weren't.

Indeed, I was involved in software projects (and so was Greg TR, a loyal reader of this blog) that differentiated between instructors and students long before Blackboard was a twinkle in a venture capitalist's eye.

This one looks promising, and since the CMS has been the centerpiece of my professional career for the last decade or so, you can bet that I'll be following this.

Way to go Software Freedom Law Center!

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Yesterday Michael Chasen, President and CEO of Blackboard, published the following press release trumpeting his company's largess toward the open source and homegrown educational online learning environment community. Dear Blackboard Community, I am wr... [Read More]

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