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Update: Blackboard Defends Patent, Files More Claims
6/3/2008
Blackboard's Response
In its latest defense, filed May 27, 2008 and made public May 28,
Blackboard told the Patent Office that it was not withdrawing any of
the 44 original patent claims. In fact, the company added several more:
57 in total now. In comments to the Patent Office, Blackboard also took
the opportunity to define the differences between the technologies
they've patented and those used by other learning management systems.
Specifically, the patent is limited in the following way, according to Blackboard's comments:
"Once a person is logged into the system as a user with a user name and password, that user must be capable of having multiple predetermined roles in the system to satisfy the claims of the Alcorn patent. A system which does not provide the capability of a user to have multiple roles once that person is logged in using the single user name and password, but instead requires a person to perform a separate login procedure using a different user name and password in order to assume a different role, does not meet the clear limitations of the independent claims 1 and 36 of the Alcorn patent."
Furthermore, the claims only apply to learning management systems in educational settings. Blackboard does not claim to have invented multiple roles for users; it claims to have been the first to use the concept in the education space in specific circumstances, i.e., allowing a single user with a single logon and single user account to hold multiple roles across multiple courses. In the USPTO's reexamination, it found that this was an "obvious" application of a technology and was therefore not patentable. Blackboard, in its response to the USPTO this week, objected to this and sought to have the claims of obviousness withdrawn. The reasons Blackboard cited were numerous and can all be found in Blackboard's response, which is available in PDF form from Desire2Learn's site here.
New Patent Claims
In addition to defending its patent, Blackboard also took the
opportunity to try to expand it, adding 13 new claims. All of these new
claims relate to systems and methods involved in the claims that the
Patent Office has tentatively rejected. They are all, in other words,
dependent claims. Blackboard also wrote in its filing that the new
claims do not broaden the Alcorn patent.
"These claims do not broaden the scope of the claims, as they merely add further limitations to claims already issued," according to Blackboard's May 27 filing.
The new claims include matters relating to the means for storing data, the means for assigning access, various subsystems, permissions, access (or lack thereof) to features based on user roles, and enabling and disabling pre-defined characteristics based on user roles.
Again, the complete response to the USPTO can be found in PDF format
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