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 March 19, 2009 Greetings, I am writing today to inform you of the latest updates in an ongoing series of legal actions Blackboard Inc. has initiated against Desire2Learn Incorporated (Desire2Learn). This series of activities dates back to July 2006. You may already be aware that the United States Patent & Trademark Office granted Blackboard a new patent, # 7,493,396, about one month ago. It's entitled “Internet-based Education Support Systems and Methods.” We can take no position at this time whether it was properly issued or is valid. We have just learned that Blackboard has filed suit, again in the Eastern District of Texas, against Desire2Learn using this most recent patent award as the basis. Note that Blackboard has not sued our U.S. subsidiary, D2L Ltd. Although Blackboard has not served the suit on Desire2Learn, we expect this to happen in the near term. The new lawsuit follows (within hours), Judge Clark's (second) denial of Blackboard's (second) motion to have Desire2Learn held in contempt. Blackboard's motion was filed under seal, so we were not at liberty to disclose Blackboard's motion previously. We want to keep you abreast of this situation, and how we've been proactive. We promptly identified a modification that would clearly avoid the patent and improve the product. That modification was reviewed by an independent external legal advisor, and we have received an opinion from him that our modification ensures our product is not covered by the claims of the new Blackboard patent. Once we received this opinion, we finalized our modification and incorporated it into our product. Our intent here is to further teaching and learning, and not to expend energy in patent litigation. The change is in the form of a small code modification that is now ready for deployment. For most users it will have no impact; for a few, the impact will be negligible and may improve the user experience. It's important to note that this information is quite new; we have not made any analysis on whether the patent is valid, or validly issued, or even whether we would have been a legitimate target for an infringement action before this modification. We don't have detail or opinions at this point (except as noted above). We simply wanted to be proactive, with further analysis and strategy to be determined later. We wanted to make you aware as soon as we could, and we pledge to provide you with more information as it becomes available. The patent affects only U.S. clients, but the modification is now part of the product. We will be initially communicating with U.S. clients of both Desire2Learn and D2L Ltd. about details of the modification. Your Account Manager will contact you shortly. We know that we've been remiss in updating the patent info blog (there's not been much to report), but we will be updating it with information within the next few days. Please feel free to visit www.Desire2Learn.com/patentinfo and set up an RSS feed. Should you have any questions in the meantime please feel free to contact your Account Manager. If you are wondering how you can help the best way is to share your positive Desire2Learn and D2L Ltd. experiences with your peer institutions. I would like to thank you once again for your partnership with Desire2Learn and D2L Ltd. Your continued success provides us with the energy to continue to innovate and provide you with great products and the high level of service that you have come to expect from us. Best Regards,  John Baker, President & CEO Desire2Learn Incorporated President D2L Ltd.
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