Federal Judiciary

Blackboard v. Desire2Learn - injunction update

By Michael Smith

On March 10 Judge Clark held a hearing on the plaintiff's request for a permanent injunction in this case, which recently resulted in a verdict for the plaintiff. He issued a Judgment and Permanent Injunction that prohibits Desire2Learn from using or selling version 8.2.2 and earlier versions of the Learning Environment product in the United States. Judge Clark stayed enforcement of the injunction order for 60 days and ordered that Blackboard and Desire2Learn meet in the next ten days to negotiate, if possible, an appropriate royalty for current clients as an alternative to the injunction.

In the interim, Desire2Learn's weblog on the case claims that even if it doesn't prevail in the case or on appeal, it can "easily and cheaply" redesign its product so that it falls outside the boundaries of the asserted claims of the patent, and that it has already done much of the work, and it will have the new version 8.3 available before the 60 days expires.

Full post as published by Eastern District of Texas Federal Court Practice on March 20, 2008 (boomark / email).