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Plugin Patent to Mean Changes in IE?
hexene writes "The W3C have issued an initial statement on the recent court case of Eolas v. Microsoft in regards to US Patent 5,838,906. The patent relates to the embedding of objects in hypermedia documents, and Microsoft has indicated they will have to make changes to Internet Explorer as a result of the ruling. There may also be far-reaching effects to both other web browser vendors and page authors. Check out the public mailing list to discuss the various issues." See the previous Eolas story for background.
You would think that since intellectual property protection is so important to Microsoft, they would be more cautious about insuring that nothing they shipped infringed any patents instead of continuing to get caught in these embarassing lawsuits.
Hypermedia? wtf is that?
Embedding of stuff, this is obvious.
I remeber when I had a typewriter, if I wanted a picture, I would glue a photo onto the page.
Computers allowed you to cut and paste the picture. Later sound, or video.
What makes the remoteness a differentiating factor?
This isn't even an issue of software patents, just stupidity.
Putting payment informaiton into a device, and then with a single click selecting the product is obvious.
I do it at Amazon.com, a Pop Machine, and a laundrymat, the computer doesn't really make it any difference.
softpatents are evil
Now, you cant be really sad when it's Microsoft that gets it, but this is just silly. Not to mention extremely expensive for all browser makers, 'cause just wait, these guys arent stopping with MS.... this is also going to effect Opera, Konqueror/Safari and Mozilla.
Why do all these companies make such a fuss about these patents, they aren't going to get any money, because if the company has the choice to just alter their software to avoid the patent then they will. All they are doing is slowing development of software and causing incompatabilities around the world. Basically making a mess of the current system which WORKS. How long to US patents last? It seems to long. Patents are forcing software to take steps backwards and not forward, I just hope the companies realise the potential damage they are doing before it becomes too late.
I spent ages trying to think of sig, but never did
Actually thats my biggest complaint about both this, and any other patent lawsuit.
It needs to be more clearly defined *EXACTLY* what is being patented... these vague patents... or more specifically, a patent without an actual implementation, opens us up to all kinds of useless broadreaching patent lawsuits. In the end, this kinda stuff tends to hurt the consumers more then anyone!
IMHO, you should not be able to receive a patent unless you have an exact implementation to demonstrate exactly what it is you are patenting. Patents should be almost as specific and exacting as trademarks are.
own patents exclusively as a defensive measure. 1) As you said, it gives them amunition in their lawsuits. 2) The more patents you own, the better the chances that your patents will cover any new software that you put on the market 3) They sign cross licensing agreements with each other stating that they won't sue, thus doubling their protection.
I think you have to remember that patents are actually very important, as long as they are used for the right reasons. i.e. A patent for a new toaster design that will revolutionise toasters is a good thing, because it ensures that a new company or a company that has put a lot of investment into a product gets the sales they deserve and someone else can't take their idea and capitalise on their research.
Obviosuly its good to have patents worldwide so that if an American company designs a product or a European company, they can sell the product not only in their continent but also in other countries without worrying about their product being ripped off, thus increasing the potential profit for the company in question.
where patents are bad is when a company makes a patent in order to prevent other companies from using a technology even though the company that owns the patent has no intention of making anything with it. Basically like registering an internet domain in order to stop another company getting it (so they have to buy it off you). Cheeky business and very annoying.
I spent ages trying to think of sig, but never did
The effect this has on Microsoft will be almost nil.. What do they care about what people see in webpages?
The real people to worry should be Quicktime and, Macromedia.
See: the people who use/rely on this technology.
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This might be more bad publicity for Microsoft, but look at the bigger picture.
Software patents are bad. We are now probably not allowed to embed just about anything anywhere. What about flash, java, pdf documents that open in your browser, mime attachments in your emails, stylesheets, etc?
What if someone patents the command-line interface, GUIs, icons, toolbars, media players, p2p technology, archiving, backups, compression, encryption, the way we interact with pcs, vector animations, etc. ?
Patents hurt society in the long run. One person might become rich, but it harms innovation and productivity.
Besides - mozilla-based browsers, konqueror, safari, etc all use plugins. What about them? Do we have to remove this functionality from these opensource browsers as well?
Where will it stop?
In the days of the steam engine, when the good Mr Watt was busy inventing stuff he found that the concept of a "crank" was already invented and patented. He was able to get around this using the "satellite" gearing system. (one gear obitting a static one).
My point is that it wasn't "a means of getting circular motion from a reciprocating piston" that was already patented, it was specifically the crank. Software patents seem to have lost this distinction.
Apple's Hypercard.
It should be obvious, but just to go through it, you'd create stacks that had the whole interweb link things, and links that could launch images, sounds, and other crap.
Very interesting. But he didn't promise anything: he even claimed to be speaking hypothetically.
This could be interpreted as just trying to inflate the value of his patent. "Not only will I screw vast $$$ out of MSFT, I will then also be in a position to auction technical leadership in the browser market to the highest bidder."
The "control path for user interaction" would imply to me that the helper app has to be hosted within the browser to qualify. Someone else probably owns the patent on spawning a registered external application based on the MIME type of the file.
But the best way to stimulate the industry is to drop all patents at all. Altogether.
Clarification: This should apply only to patents on inventions that can be usefully implemented as a program running on a generic PC. People who suggest abolishing the patent system entirely may not realize that doing so would kill the development of new drugs.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
the court had not permitted the jury to consider information on the validity of the patent
filed in 1994.
WTF?
So the PTO hands out patents left and right with the assumption that "they'll get knocked down in court if they're not valid claims".
Then the courts come around and exterminate the ability to disprove the validity?
WTF???
And what else pisses me off is I feel heistant to really say anything strongly negative about the US government, becuase The Department of Homeland Security (AKA Big Brother) is watching.
Please consider making an automatic monthly recurring donation to the EFF
you probably mean HTML
but then you are ranting so wildly you probably don't know the fuck you mean.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
The message from W3C indicates that Microsoft will drop infringing features from Internet Explorer. You can expect Mozilla and Konqueror to avoid this patent like the plague, causing a chain-reaction encompassing Netscape, Firebird, Galeon, Safari, and others. It won't matter if one or two obscure browsers adopt this patented technique -- it will be dead on the web, and that will be a lose-lose-lose situation for the users, developers, and patent holder.
The reaction of the community in general surprises and saddens me.
Ok, most of us view Microsoft as an enemy. Fine. I have no love lost for M$.
However, in this situation any competent software engineer can see that they are right. The patent is obviously invalid. Any competent software engineer who was around at that time knows that Microsoft had COM and embedded documents long before this patent. Application of these technologies to browsers was obvious and trivial, and should not be covered by a patent due to being obvious.
The honest position would be to fully support Microsoft in this matter, and not to search for possible positive outcomes out of browsers suddenly dropping plugins.
Patent covers "any algorithm that implements ". Damn clever! No one is allowed to do any thing that works around my patent; I called it.
How can you patent "any algorithm" that cover everythings? Build a new technology, Opps, that is a new algorithm. Pay up!
To my mind, a good patent has one of the following two characteristics.
1. It requires much study to even comprehend the patent and a peer review of experts in the field say that it is a SIGNIFICANT advance.
2. The patent opens so much new ground in ideas that even though the ideas are somewhat obvious, the unique combination is so explosively new that there is clearly no prior art that could possibly be referenced to invalidate the patent.
By the way, I do not think that HTML at any point was a patentable idea. There have been many markup languages and even some that were used in an internet setting before HTML came along. HTML was successful not just because it was a clear and easy simplification of SGML, but because there was a good and "free" implementation (the Mosaic browser) of it readily available. Also, if you look at the RFCs for HTTP it is clear that HTTP rested very strongly on the notions already known in other internet protocols (email, ftp, etc.). HTTP and HTML are clearly evolutionay ideas (if you examine the context in which they were created), and it was how they were used that was revolutionary.
If MS "allows" itself to lose this case, are they not setting a precedent by which Eolas could attempt to attack OS?
Certainly a plug-in model exists in OS and has a GPL-style license. What's to stop Eolas from pulling a SCO and trying to charge everyone who uses OS-based plug-in technology?
It seems convenient that MS would lose on an important issue that could hurt OS much more than MS.
Doyle has already decided that free and open protocols and software (html via the 'object' tag is free, open, and standard) can -NOT- use his patents royalty free via his lawsuit. currently, the 'object' tag implimentation of his patent -is- cross-platform standard, and -that- is why even the w3c is angry at this decision.
Internet Explorer is just as guilty as Safari, as Mozilla, as Opera, as the rest. anyone who supports plugins is guilty of infrigement. and selective prosecution is -not- available if he wnats to keep his patent. if he does not procede to demand compliance from all browser makers, then he will find his patent uneforceable, and nothing will change.
active X, and plugins in general are not within the scope of this patent. only those 'embedded' in hypermedia. he's not suing MS for creating activeX. they wouldn't have to turn it off in all its applications on their OS - only in hypermedia.
also, he cannot release a patent 'for free' and then dictate who can and cannot use it. if he releases his patented information to anyone who produces code that impliments it under the GPL - then microsoft is free to use that GPL'd code to be compliant. and then what do you have? you have a patented, GPL'd standard to 'embed' objects in hypermedia. which in your best case leaves us precisely where we are right now, but with an unenforceable patent over that 'object' tag.
he will either force MS to abandon html and make something new and proprietary (and take 95% of the desktop market with it) - or nothing will change.
there is no upside to software patents. regardless of which corporations are involved.
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
If you look at claim 1 of the patent (5838906) , the key seems to be a combination of 4 things: a browser, hypermedia (text with "clickable" links), a client-server architecture over a network, and dowloadable program code, executed on the client, that communicates both with the browser and bi-directionally with the server. The Eolas technology page claims the first public demonstration in 1993. Was there anyone else who had all 4 components in one thing in 1993?
I'll say it again: You can patent a cotton gin, but you can't patent the idea of cleaning cotton. Nor can you prevent other people from selling cotton cleaners while you have the patent.
You can patent a drug that treats asthma, but you can't patent treating asthma.
So, it follows, that you can't patent embedding objects in a hypertext document, you can patent a method of embedding objects in hypertext documents.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
If IE has to be modified in order to workaround this patent, then it means Microsoft can require everyone using Windows to upgrade to IE 7.0.
One of the challenges facing Microsoft (and other software companies) is getting their customers to install upgrades.
With a proper spin on this, it shouldn't be hard to get everyone to throw out IE 5.5, etc. and finally upgrade to 7.0. This will probably begin by convincing websites to modify their content to support a NEW plugin standard supported by IE 7.0 in order to avoid lawsuits related to this patent.
So in a nutshell, MS gets to "require" customers into upgrading without appearing to be the demanding bully. The only question I have is what else are they going to put into IE 7? Will this be like bills in our govt where they add stuff (pork) that won't get passed on their own?
Maybe they'll bundle their new antivirus product and make it a huge publicity win. i.e. "Unlike Linux (re: SCO), we respect other people's IP so we changed our flagship product. Plus, we've added antivirus code to make this the most secure browser technoloy on the planet! And the anti-virus code incorporates DRM so your employees don't accidently make your company liable for their copyright violations!"
I hope they reduce their browser to displaying static content. I hope lots of people get pissed. I hope everyone explains to people that MS is NOT evil in this case. Software patents are evil, and if they want the WWW back, they need to write Congress to get rid of software patents! This could be the thing that gets rid of them. (Ok, not likely, but we can hope.)
Best. Comment. Ever. Enjoy!
The parent article is not insightful. There is no legal obligation for a patent-holder to prosecute all infringers equally. Yes, a patent holder can, too, dictate who can and who cannot use the patent, and can be as unfair as he wants to be, because the patent is his property. Your claim that selective prosecution is not available if someone wants to keep a patent is total crap; perhaps you are confused since there is a similar provision in trademark law.