So says the headline at InsideHigherEd.com. The Supreme Court has showed a renewed interest in addressing overly broad patents so maybe, along with the recent Educause letter to Blackboard, this will lead them to back-off a bit on their patent claims. Here's the lead of the InsideHigherEd story and most of a latter paragraph.

A patent dispute pitting open source advocates for online learning technologies against Blackboard, the industry giant, became more bitter Thursday with the announcement that a formal request had been filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to revoke 44 of Blackboard’s patent claims.

The patent rights at issue were awarded to Blackboard in January, and their breadth is a key part of the dispute. Critics say that the patents are so broad that they would appear to cover just about any online learning technology, and could be used to squelch innovation at a time that Blackboard — following its absorption of WebCT — is already a dominant player in the course management business. Blackboard has insisted that it is not out to hurt open source, that the fears about its patent claims are exaggerated, and that higher education benefits from the company’s ability to invest in new products — something it says it couldn’t do without protecting its intellectual property.