My understanding is that its hard to be competitive in this space because Blackboard is very patent litigious. Patent 6,988,138 “Internet-based education suppor

My understanding is that its hard to be competitive in this space because Blackboard is very patent litigious. Patent 6,988,138 “Internet-based education support system and methods” is considered overly-broad and has been used against competitors. An East Texas jury gave Blackboard 2.5m in damages in a suit against a competitor in 2008 using this patent. Read the patent, it a complete cockup, by the already low standards of the USPTO. The abstract is laughable because its so broad: A system and methods for implementing education online by providing institutions with the means for allowing the creation of courses to be taken by students online, the courses including assignments, announcements, course materials, chat and whiteboard facilities, and the like, all of which are available to the students over a network such as the Internet. Various levels of functionality are provided through a three-tiered licensing program that suits the needs of the institution offering the program. In addition, an open platform system is provided such that anyone with access to the Internet can create, manage, and offer a course to anyone else with access to the Internet without the need for an affiliation with an institution, thus enabling the virtual classroom to extend worldwide.