Michael Geist, columnist for BBCNews, has added his commentary on the Blackboard patent claim. His comments describe the confusion that exists within the education community among academics who have worked with other learning environments for years and now are uncertain whether the software they use is in some type of patent violation.
In commenting on the Blackboard postion, Geist notes that Blackboard claims to be making a specific rather than general claim.
For its part Blackboard claims that the patents only cover narrow company-created innovations.
After reviewing the patent description, I find the claim of narrow company-created innovations difficult to interpret.
