Blackboard has made a legal non-revokable non-assert patent pledge which formalizes their position on patents with respect to open source course management systems like Moodle, ATutor, Sakai, and many others. For many months Bb has said “they had no intention to sue universities” and the community has asked Bb to put that in writing – this pledge is “in writing”. :)
The patent pledge is available at:
http://www.blackboard.com/patent
Sakai and Educause have prepared a statement which should hit the web sites of Sakai and Educause soon. I attach the final version below.