Blackboard, competitor reach agreement to end court fight.

This post comes from BizJournals. IParadigms LLC has agreed not to sue educational software company Blackboard Inc. to settle a lawsuit.

Both companies sell online learning platforms for educational institutions. D.C.-based Blackboard provides software that universities and high schools use to put course materials and other information online. In July it released a new plagiarism detection feature.

Oakland, Calif.-based iParadigms sells online applications to identify plagiarism.

IParadigms received a patent May 15 related to technology for conducting a peer review process and evaluating the originality of documents.

Blackboard filed a lawsuit Aug. 3 asking a California federal court to prevent a patent infringement lawsuit by iParadigms and issue a finding that the company's new patent is invalid. Blackboard chief legal officer Matt Small said his company began receiving "threatening" letters from iParadigms July 6.

Legal experts said Blackboard would needed to have convinced a judge that the company had a reasonable fear that iParadigms would sue for infringement to secure an order preventing a case before one was ever filed. Click here to read the rest of this article.