Patent Office Asked to Review and Revoke Blackboard Patent

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

      Patent Office Asked to Review and Revoke Blackboard Patent

Software Freedom Law Center Files Re-Examination Request on Behalf of
			       Clients

NEW YORK, November 30, 2006 -- The Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC),
provider of pro-bono legal services to protect and advance Free and
Open Source Software, has filed a formal request with the United
States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) for re-examination of
Blackboard's e-Learning patent. If successful, the request will
ultimately lead to the cancellation of all 44 claims of the patent.

Blackboard, Inc., maker of web-based software that allows teachers and
students to interact outside of the classroom, was awarded the patent
on January 17, 2006. The patent, "Internet-based education support
system and methods" (U.S. 6988138), grants Blackboard a monopoly on
most educational software that differentiates between the roles of
teacher and student until the year 2022.

The Software Freedom Law Center filed the re-examination request on
behalf of Sakai, Moodle and ATutor, three open source educational
software programs. The request cites documents that predate the filing
of the Blackboard patent and describe everything claimed in it. For a
patent to be valid, it must contain ideas that were original when it
was filed.

"In a free society, there is no room for a monopoly on any part of the
educational process," said Eben Moglen, Executive Director of SFLC and
Professor of Law and Legal History at Columbia University. "We are
confident that there is enough prior art for the Patent Office to
open, re-examine, and ultimately revoke all of the patent's claims."

The Software Freedom Law Center filed the request for re-examination
on November 17. The Patent Office will decide whether to order
re-examination of the patent within three months.

About the Blackboard Patent

In July, Blackboard filed a lawsuit against Desire2Learn, a competing
educational software maker, alleging infringement of its e-Learning
patent. Although Desire2Learn's software is not open source, the open
source and educational software communities responded with immediate
concern to the possibility of an additional lawsuit that targets them.

"The educational software community has for decades thrived on the
open discussion and transmission of ideas," said Joseph Hardin, Sakai
Foundation Board Chairman. "We are deeply concerned that Blackboard's
broad patent will stifle innovation in our community."

"Blackboard's patent is patently unjust, as it covers ideas that were
widely known and implemented before it was granted," said Martin
Dougiamas, founder of Moodle. "It's part of a disturbing trend of
patents that seek to lock up obvious cultural ideas as the property of
individuals."

After Blackboard filed the lawsuit against Desire2Learn, volunteers
across the Internet found examples of older programs that used ideas
claimed by the patent. These volunteers collaborated to make a
Wikipedia article on the "History of virtual learning environments,"
which documents several examples of prior art.

"A patent on an educational concept -- namely the relationship among
students, instructors, and administrators -- makes no sense," said
Greg Gay, project lead of ATutor. "Such ideas are public and have been
practiced for centuries; they are not the result of research and
development."

About the Software Freedom Law Center

The Software Freedom Law Center -- chaired by Eben Moglen, one of the
world's leading experts on intellectual property law as applied to
software -- provides legal representation and other law-related
services to protect and advance Free and Open Source Software. The Law
Center is dedicated to assisting non-profit open source developers and
projects.  For criteria on eligibility and to apply for assistance,
please contact the Law Center directly or visit the Web at
http://www.softwarefreedom.org.

About the Sakai Foundation

The Sakai Foundation is a non-profit corporation that supports the
development and distribution of the free, open source Sakai
Collaboration and Learning Environment, and nurtures the global
community of developers and users that creates it. The Sakai CLE
enables online learning, teaching, research and collaboration within
and across distributed communities. The Foundation is made up of an
evolving international community of universities, colleges, companies
and individuals who contribute to the Sakai CLE, and support its use
in hundreds of schools and institutions, from small colleges to
statewide university systems, around the world. See sakaiproject.org.

About Moodle

Moodle is open-source software designed for collaborative
Internet-based learning, with development led by the founder Martin
Dougiamas and supported by a community of over 150,000 educators and
developers. It is used in 164 countries by over 19,000 known sites in
75 languages. Moodle is dedicated to creating tools that improve the
reach and depth of online education, particularly in areas that can
not afford commercial software licenses. For more information see
http://moodle.org/.

About ATutor

ATutor is an Open Source Web-based Learning Content Management System
(LCMS) designed to be accessible to all who might use the system,
including those with disabilities, and designed to be adaptable to
instructional requirements of individual teachers, who can configure
the system to their specific teaching needs. With participation from
many groups around the world, ATutor is being developed and maintained
at the University of Toronto's Adaptive Technology Resource Centre,
one of the leading contributors to knowledge on inclusive design for
information technologies. ATutor is one of many Open Source projects
underway at the centre.


Media contacts:

Jim Garrison
Public Relations Coordinator
Software Freedom Law Center
+1-212-461-1910
garrison@softwarefreedom.org

Joseph Hardin
Chairman of the Board of Directors
Sakai Foundation
hardin@umich.edu

                                 ###