What a lousy birthday present: Blackboard patents the LMS

It's my birthday today and it's nothing but bad news. The US Patent office, in their infinite wisdom, has granted Blackboard a patent on pretty much all things related to online course delivery. Ick. Ick, ick, ick. The abstract of their patent (full details available from the US Patent office website) describes their patent of:

A system and methods for implementing education online by providing institutions with the means for allowing the creation of courses to be taken by students online, the courses including assignments, announcements, course materials, chat and whiteboard facilities, and the like, all of which are available to the students over a network such as the Internet.

This is like patenting a lecture hall as an environment that facilitates learning. What are you trying to do, Blackboard? Seriously.

Will the open source community, which is becoming more and more viable, be able to continue to grow with Blackboard standing by with a patent to wave at them? Forgive my rant but this has be quite upset. More thoughts on this once I've cooled down.