Archive for August, 2007

Should Universities Patent Their Research? Universities Say Yes. But should they?

This is a guest blog post by Jim Farmer, Coordinator, Scholarly Systems Group at Georgetown University and editor at the eReSS project, University of Hull.
At the December 2006 Sakai Conference in Atlanta many expressed the view that patents inhibit collaboration and innovation in teaching and learning. But that was not the view expressed by higher […]

Blackboard v iParadigms Is Over

As has already been reported in several other fora, Blackboard and iParadigms (the maker of Turnitin) have settled their patent dispute out of court and are working together again as partners. I’m not sure that we’ll ever really know what happened between the two companies, but any amicable settlement that leads to the non-assertion of […]

Sorting Out the Issues in Blackboard v iParadigms

The latest news is that Blackboard has stated that the language of the intellectual property waiver in their contract with iParadigms was specific to that contract, motivated by specific concerns about the particular company and business relationship involved. Blackboard further states the language is not present in their standard Building Blocks contract or other partner […]

iParadigm’s Statement on the Suit

Stephen has a press statement [.doc] from iParadigms, as does

Update on Blackboard v Turnitin

Update: immagic has several more documents available (one, two, three, four) on what is apparently an outgrowth of a long-running conflict between iParadigms, the company that owns Turnitin, and Sciworth, the company that owns the Safe Assignment anti-plagiarism technology licensed by Blackboard. I haven’t read any of this documentation but am pointing you to it […]





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