Academic - CNN story on Blackboard Patent

Who invented e-learning computing?
CNN.com POSTED: 10:36 a.m. EDT, August 29, 2006

Excerpt: "The patent, awarded to the Washington, D.C.-based company in January but announced last month, has prompted an angry backlash from the academic computing community, which is fighting back in techie fashion -- through online petitions and in a sprawling Wikipedia entry that helps make its case.

Critics say the patent claims nothing less than Blackboard's ownership of the very idea of e-learning. If allowed to stand, they say, it could quash the cooperation between academia and the private sector that has characterized e-learning for years and explains why virtual classrooms are so much better than they used to be."
http://www.cnn.com/2006/EDUCATION/08/27/e.learning.dispute.ap/index.html