A federal appeals court has invalidated 38 of Blackboard Inc.’s contested patent claims to be invalid in ongoing litigation between the D.C.-based education software company and its Canadian competitor, Desire2Learn Inc. 

The ruling brings to an end one portion of a year’s long dispute between Blackboard and Desire2Learn.  Claims 1 through 38 (out of 44) have been invalidated by the appellate court, Unfortunately, claims 39 to 44 were not an issue in the appeal, though the US Trademark Office is also continuing it’s re-examination of Blackboard’s patent. 

Blackboard has received 3 other patents since the start of the case and has multiple law suits against Desire2Learn. 

You may read the appellate court’s decision here (PDF)

B. J. Schone has posted an excellent article on planning and executing webinars at E-Learning Weekly.

• When E-Learning Council holds a webinar we try to support the presenter with a moderator to handle questions and technical support to handle the inevitable glitches that seem to manifest themselves.
• Through hard experience we have learned to test, test, test and freeze the configuration.  An instructor wanted to use their own laptop after we had tested the conference software on a particular setup–we had glitches all afternoon.  Never again.
• A rule we violate (and by a large amount) is we frequently have a hundred people attend a webinar (they recommend six).  Perhaps the difference between training and webinars.