The ongoing court battle between rival learning management systems Blackboard and Desire2Learn continues as Blackboard has filed lawsuit against Desire2Learn for contempt. These allegations stem from a claim, according to Blackboard that Desire2Learn didn’t makes changes to their software in order to avoid copyright infringements and patent violations.
Due to this, a jury ruled that Desire2Learn wouldn’t be allowed to distribute their software Learning Environment 8.2.2. As a result of this Desire2Learn resorted to creating a new version, 8.3 where they modified certain features of the application by renaming the user role to “student”, along with deleting default roles. Back in 2006 Blackboard was awarded a patent that allowed them to have sole rights to this feature. When Desire2Learn did this, it violated the patent which Blackboard which subsequently led to the lawsuit of copyright infringement.
Blackboard recently acquired WebCT, another stronghold amongst course management systems, and ultimately is seeking to acquire Desire2Learn as well as being the dominant leader. Because Blackboard holds rights to these patents, it makes it difficult for other companies including those of the open source to develop software, and would ultimately result in them having to pay a significant amount of royalties to Blackboard.
While Desire2Learn has refused to settle, many outsiders support their stand against Blackboard in hopes that the lawsuit will not relinquish all rights of technology control over to Blackboard.
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