Notes about the latest happenings in the web development and online learning spaces.
Quote: The USPTO has NOT invalidated the Blackboard patent. Instead the USPTO is proposing to invalidate the patent and has issued some preliminary documents for review and comment. At the end of the day the USPTO still might uphold the patent as valid.
All 44 of Blackboard’s patent claims have been thrown out by the US Patent & Trademark Office. It’s not 100% official (this is the first step in the process), but things are looking up… for everyone except Blackboard. I really think they shot themselves in the foot by trying to establish a monopoly via patents and lawsuits. The negative PR will haunt them for years.
A press release issued today indicates the IMS Global Learning Consortium is piloting the use of Creative Commons licensing for some of their standards. This is excellent news for proponents of open standards, and will hopefully lead to more openness from the IMS.
The WCAG Samurai Errata for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 1.0 were published this week by the WCAG Samurai group.
Here are some great blog posts regarding the Blackboard vs Desire2Learn lawsuit.
Blackboard won its lawsuit against Desire2Learn. This really bums me out! I wonder if Desire2Learn will appeal (please say yes) and if Blackboard will start going after other LMS vendors?
Excerpt from the jury instructions: […]
Blackboard‘s lawsuit against Desire2Learn just went to trial. This lawsuit has the potential to bring a lot of LMS vendors to their knees. Good luck, Desire2Learn. Hope you win!
I looked up the QTI specs on the IMS site and couldn’t believe the boldfaced notice I saw on the page: “HTML documents may be viewed online, but may not be printed without permission” (emphasis added).
Can you believe that? IMS is in the business of creating standards they want the whole world to use. These standards should be open, easily accessible and free from licensing constraints. Why on earth do they want to put silly notices like this on their site?
Thoughts on the pending the Adobe-Macromedia merger.
