DAT News

We are pleased to announce that the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has ruled on the appeals that resulted from the trial in Texas. The Federal Circuit has ruled in favor of Desire2Learn across the board and confirmed that all 38 patent claims asserted by Blackboard are invalid.

Those who have followed this blog may recall that claims 36-38 of the patent were the subject of the jury trial and that we had asserted that those claims were invalid because the "invention" they claimed was present in prior art. To decide that issue, the Appellate Court first had to define the word "user" in the '138 Patent. Blackboard argued that the term "user" refers to an electronic user account, and that a user account is defined by a single user name and password combination.

Desire2Learn asserted that a user is a person who uses the learning system. As the Appellate Court said, "The [patent] makes clear that the word 'user' refers to a flesh-and-blood person and not an electronic representation of that person."

Having decided that Desire2Learn's interpretation of the word "user" was correct, the Court turned its attention to whether the prior art on which Desire2Learn relied at trial contained all of the elements of those claims. As the Court put it, "On the merits, we agree with Desire2Learn that claims 36-38, as properly construed, are invalid for anticipation as a matter of law by CourseInfo 1.5 and Serf."

The second issue addressed by the Court was whether the Texas Court was correct in ruling that claims 1-35 of the '138 Patent were invalid. In short, the Texas Court had ruled that the "Means for assigning a level of access to and control of each data file based on a user of the system's predetermined role in a course," a "means-plus-function" term, was indefinite. The Federal Circuit has agreed that in the '138 Patent Blackboard tried to claim too broadly which invalidates those claims:

"By failing to describe the means by which the access control manager will create an access control list, Blackboard has attempted to capture any possible means for achieving that end. Section 112, paragraph 6, is intended to prevent such pure functional claiming."

Despite the challenges along the way, we have all of you to thank for supporting us through this lengthy process. We have always been, and will continue to be, about meeting the needs of our clients in their pursuit of advancing teaching and learning. Thank you for believing in us!