Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Plans IE Changes Due to Plugin Patent
aWalrus writes "Microsoft has outlined some of the strategies they may pursue for modifying the way Internet Explorer handles plugins (annoying the user may circumvent the patent) if they lose their legal battle against Eolas Technologies (which claims they invented the seamless procedure for running plugins). There has already been a previous ruling against MS which they continue to appeal. This is likely to have repercussions in the Open Source Community too. If MS is found to be infringing the patent, that ruling could be extended to other browsers like Opera and Mozilla. Usability expert Jeffrey Zeldman provides an in-depth commentary on this issue and its implications."
correct me if i'm wrong, but opera isn't open source. The phrasing of that posting sure implied that it was.
we hate MS, go Eolas!!!
we hate patents, go MS!!!
umm... *pop*
At first when I heard this, I wasn't too disappointed. That's what they get for stealing technology. But no Flash in IE? That affects...well...*does some mental math...carry the 1...*a lot of websites that I enjoy. If you can't seamlessly play Flash media in IE (or Mozilla or Opera, eventually), well that sucks. Who the hell are these Eolas guys and are they intentionally trying to send the Web's progress back about six years? For once, I think Microsoft has been wronged, mostly due to the implication that this will affect ALL web browsers.
Perhaps even MS will learn the evils of SW patents, and call for an end to Software patents. Perhaps Slashdot will go 24hrs with SCO story also.
Why not pay the $521 mil and keep the browser going? If MS can pay it and the competitors cannot then they will become the platform of choice due to functionality.
"If you are on fire you can just stop, drop, and roll. If you fall into Lava you are just dead." - my 5yr old daughter
The interesting thing about patents (and copyrights) is that you can enforce them selectively. Unlike trademarks, you can sue whoever you want whenever you want. Look at how Unisys didn't even mention their GIF patent until two years before it expired.
So, anyone with $700 to blow might could think up some random tech just to prevent Microsoft from using it, if they wanted too. If Eolas doesn't need to go after mozilla or any other browser if they don't want to.
(I'm also mentioning this because I keep seeing people post who believe you have to 'actively' enforce copyright and patent rights or lose them, and this annoys me.)
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
It might actually be nice, to force Web AdminDUHstrators to not rely upon plugins for everything. It might be nice to actually see web sites using HTML for a change. It might be nice to browse without having to see Flash ads screaming at me to BUY BUY NOW YOU BASTARD!
www.eFax.com are spammers
There hasn't been one of these since, like, '99?!
WHOA!
Why is MS acting like it's going to lose this lawsuit. It has never done that before. All the times it's been sued (too many to count at this point) it has always put up a public face of invincibilty and constant press releases about how the suit is groundless and how it is positive it's going to win.
Maybe this suit is so strong they know they are going to lose or maybe they want to lose so they have an excuse to make IE even more closed then it already is.
Maybe they will just abandon standards altogether with the next version of IE and blame it on the lawsuit.
We may be about to witness a complete bifurcation of the internet soon.
War is necrophilia.
While schadenfreude against Microsoft is slightly less fun than that against SCO right now, let's remember that this is the kind of stuff that stops innovation. No matter who is suing who for whatever perceived infringement du jour, this abuse is going to fsck all of us over.
This sig no verb.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't plugin installations in Mozilla (and opera? no xp) not seamless? I thought this lawsuit applied only to seamless plugin installers that can isntall the plugin without asking for input. In my experience, mozilla always pops up a dialog box asking if you want to install it. That only makes sense, security-wise anyway.
-3Suns
~~~~
The Revolution will be Slashdotted
Eolas could become very rich, or be made to look very stupid in a jiffy since, at core, an operating system loading an application can be seen as a plugin-based system (i.e. separately loadable piece of code that extends the functionality of the base software). The only software that can't be seen as having the ability to load plugins is a monolithic application, for embedded devices for example, that have everything they need inside to run on a given platform.
...
In short, I don't think it'd be too hard to prove prior art
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
This is a perfect example of why software patents are bad. While I enjoy watching MS wiggle at the end of a hook just like everyone else here, this will definatly effect the Open Source community. A lot of the web's best features revolve around plugins in the web browser. A company like MS might be able to pay the little company enough money to let them keep doing business as usual, but how could the Mozilla team, or the Opera team? They could be forced to "downgrade" their programs, thus being less useful/relavent than IE. And if MS can't/won't pay them off, then everyone will suffer from the loss of plugins in web browsers. This is something that doesn't just affect the geek community. It will cause huge ripples through the corporate world and in the home user markets. All because people can get patents on software. I'm moving to Europe (if things go well over there that is).
Space for rent, inquire within
It uses plugins for more then just crap on the web.. Which personally i wont miss.. what ever happend to just using standard HTML?
But what about the other 'plugins' such as smb support.. etc..
Considering its all 'intergrated'..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Yeah, patents suck and all, but there's one thing I'm not understanding here.
If Microsoft is forced to pay off Eolas, doesn't that mean they've paid for the patent? Does anyone seriously think that Eolas won't license the patent to Microsoft, or even be forced to by the judge? Why is the assumption that Microsoft will automatically be forced to remove the technology when they just paid half a billion dollars for it?
I admit I'd like to see Microsoft forced to remove it to highlight the fact that patent criticisms like mine are grounded in solid reality and not abstract fantasy, but I just can't see that happening this time. Instead, Microsoft will probably just pony up, because unless they really realize this is going to keep happening, over and over again, they probably still think the patent system is still a net gain for them, allowing them to use the system like this against certain pesky start-ups that may refuse to be bought out.
This also applies to embedded media (movies) and applets, apparently. Basically, the foundation for most complex Web Applications client interface implemented in the browser may be infringing on this patent.
Overcaffeinated. Angry geeks.
What about this article in Cringely's pulpit?
0 7. html
,
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit200211
"It would sure be nice for someone to actually consider all of this
from our point of view, rather than MS's," wrote Doyle in a recent
message to me. "It amazes me that everyone just assumes that MS will be
able to merely write a check and make the whole thing go away. What if
someone went through the following, purely theoretical, of course
logical analysis?"
"Is there any practical settlement amount that is worth more to Eolas than a
victory at trial? Considering the facts in the case and the magnitude of the
stakes here, a highly likely outcome is that it will actually go to trial,
and, once it does, that a jury will award us both damages and an injunction.
Injunction is the key word here. That is what patent rights provide: the
power to exclude. What if we were to just say no? Or, what if some other big
player were to acquire or merge with us? What if only one best-of-breed
browser could run embedded plug-ins, applets, ActiveX controls, or anything
like them, and it wasn't IE? How competitive would the other browsers be
without those capabilities? How would that change the current dynamics in
the Industry?"
Sounds like Doyle is not a Microsoft fan...
æeee!
From the article:
One such option would move the data to the Web page itself, rather than pulling it from an external source. To answer complaints that such a method would weigh down pages with heavy data loads, Microsoft proposed shifting that data to a separate frame.
How does this reduce page size? Now, instead of downloading 1 page of X bytes, I'm downloading 2 "pages" of (X - Y) and Y bytes. Fine and dandy, I don't have to dowlonad the frame in certain circumstances -- for instance, if I don't have Flash installed. But the article mentions this as a workaround to an "ungainly dialog box". Without prompting me if I want to load the frame or not, how do they plan to do this and remain free from any "automated interactive experience" that Eolas has supposedly patented?
What horribly obvious thing am I missing?
If this goes through, I could lose my job.
The company I work for has flash and windows media all over the place, and sells a content management system, one of the key features of which is the management of these types of media.
I don't think the company would survive such a change in this environment.
Damn the USA.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
"Don't depend on flash," I said.
"Nonsense," from the web-site head.
"Don't tie the site to flash," I chimed.
"Hush, silly boy," they replied.
"We tied our site to flash," I mope.
"Go rewrite the site," they cry, crushing all my hope.
So, who else sees an all-nighter coming up real quick-like?
Thomas Galvin
In very simple terms... If I discover that I can get the answer "5" by instructing the computer to add 2+3, and I apply for a patent on a method for computing the number 5, someone who discovers a way to get to "5" by adding 1+4, or subtracting 4 from 7 should not be found to be infringing on my patent.
That's exactly what Eolas is trying to do with this patent -- they've found an "answer" and patented a particular method at arriving at that solution. That shouldn't stop other people from developing alternate methods of arriving at this answer. I doubt very much that the code to implement this functionality is identical, so why does this patent have any sway over what other browser developers come up with for their particular solution?
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't a plugin essentially the same thing as OLE, which has been around since before Windows 3.1? I mean, OLE does stand for Object Linking and Embedding and it was developed by our friends at Microsoft.
And since it isn't a proprietary standard, they don't need to latch it on through a plugin.
Everybody should take a look at SVG, it's really nice, and Mozilla already got some (basic) support.
How small a thought it takes to fill a whole life
Firstly, I don't want "fundamental" browser technologies patented.
Secondly, this is apparently applets too, not just plug ins. Seems to say that embedding that JAR file puts you on the wrong side of da law.
Does their patent only cover "on the web"? Do plugins in winamp or the like meet the criteria too?
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Probably not. This is probably a play by Eolas to be bought out by MS or to license their patent portfolio to MS. In fact MS bending over so easily may indicate that this is exactly what is happening and MS is just strenghtening the patent rights they are about to acquire. IE maybe the only browser that can use said plugins in a year or so.
Just to correct you for others so if someone reading this hasen't gotten Flash working...
/usr/lib/mozilla, but if mozilla was installed via RPM most likely the plugin directory is (for version 1.4) /usr/lib/mozilla-1.4/plugin ;-)
The installer 'suggests' the mozilla directory is in
I know this drove me nuts for a while also
"Some things have to be believed to be seen." - Ralph Hodgson
Another reason why software patents are a stupid idea. Running plugins transparently is obvious to anybody working on something like a browser. You've got a file, you've got its filetype, and you've got a registered list of plugins and the filetypes they support. What the fuck else would you do?!!
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
As far as Flash is concerned I had take it off my computer. I just wasted too much time watching advertisements. If I had more control over what flash did on my machine, like I have with images, quicktime movies, and PDF, I would be more than happy reinstall and use the content. I think Flash is a good product. I just think it disrespects the computer user.
I believe that solutions exists that will not only render the patent meaningless but will also make the web a safer more pleasant place for the general users. I believe it can be smilier to giving the users to stop popups, which sometime lead to inappropriate content or sequences of windows that took over the computer.
Which is why MS is having such a problem with it. IE is a framework that, in part, allows content to pushed onto users whether they like it or not. It would be very hard to keep that functionality without technologies included in the patent. In other browsers, in which the user is respected with functionality that allows a more customized web experience, removal of the seamless technology will only be a nuisances.
Which is why we need to take all MS statements with a large grain of salt. They have quite a bit to lose if the push philosophy is destroyed. They are not the only ones. Will the advertising houses use flash it users have a choice of it's viewing, or will the just use Quicktime. Will MS web products lose importance if IE does have the ability to force content? I think not.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
We have the source code for our browsers, and most of the plug-ins. Why not just ditch the plugin system and merge the code from the various plugins into the tree for the browser. And into the browser binary. Hey presto same functionality but no plugins required.
Oh and it would be a shed load easier to install, no screwing about trying to make sure everything is in the right place etc.
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
For some it might be, but other people enjoy flash because it is versatile medium.
where would candystand.com be without flash and shockwave? homestarrunner.com?
If you don't use flash, you have animated gifs(not versatile) or movies.
I enjoy flash content. Who cares if it is in the page? I have a decent connection.
The only annoyance to me is popups and google is very effective at blocking those.
Saddened at another innovation being stifled by a greedy company.
Elated because I am sick and tired of lame web designers relying so much on bloated flash/shockwave/etc - how many sites have you been to that 'require' some plugin just to get into the site?
If you think this is a lame creation, take a look at their site. They claim to have invented the 'stylized "e" logo' - what a bunch of buffoons!
A final note: Eolas also 'invented' (designed, actually) the now-ubiquitous stylized "e" logo. IBM purchased rights to use it from us in 1997.
So what say we develop some new web standards? How about overhauling javascript, developing a standardized XML-based vector graphics format that's integrated with the DOM (or at least embrace one of the existing ones), and writing some decent authoring tools for people uncomfortable with hand-coding graphics? While we're at it, what say we throw in decent PNG support?
All pie-in-the-sky wishing for now, but man, wouldn't that be great? Browsers have stagnated for years -- tabbed browsing is nice, but it's not exactly making me wet myself with excitement.
This is bad, bad news for Macromedia. But it *could* be good news for DHTML authors, and it might even stem the tide of flash pop-ups. Unfortunately they'll probably just be replaced by DHTML popups that make it halfway across your screen, throw a javascript error and sit there on top of the page's main text...
listed here.
Who would have thought the organization behind BSD would screw software developers the world over in this fashion?
Bill Joy is rolling in his grave now.
The images accompanying the patent text are TIFF files. My browser informs me that I need a plugin in order to view them.
In order to read the patent, I must violate it.
I hate MS: Go Eolas!
I hate patents: Go MS!
I hate flash: Go Eolas!
Agreed. Flash has its uses, but I hate it when I stumble into a site some fucktard thought would be cool to do 100% in Flash. After gritting my teeth over -click not working to open a link in a new window and the right-click context menu not being available, I invariably hit or - out of habit to navigate back one link and end up backing out of the whole damn site, forcing me to thread my way back in to whatever buried page I was reading. Rule #1 of web design should be don't fuck with higher-level UI elements, and Flash fails miserably in that regard.
Such a vague and moronic patent calls for a moronic and vague workaround. The patent is "Distributed hypermedia method for automatically invoking external application providing interaction and display of embedded objects within a hypermedia document". So basically, you have to change the concept of a document in such a way that the patent is not infringed. Have the court determine "what is a document?" and change a subtle detail or two. A simple border or window superimposed over the area ought to be enough.
It seems like there should be some sort of time limit to file this kind of lawsuit. It's not fair to simply wait 10 years for everyone to unknowingly infringe upon your patent and then sue them.
The judge should have asked why they didn't file this complaint years ago? Now to ask every single software company fork over millions of dollars in unreasonable.
The judge should have said that it's too late. It's not like Microsoft tried to hide that it was using plugins. It's been in there for years. Everyone knew about it the plugins. No one knew about the patent.
Same goes for the SCO....
On another note, why can't big companies get better lawyers? What's up with companies losing really stupid lawsuits all the time?
WTO? The World Trade Organization?
;-)
Do you know why so many farmers protest? Do you know why so many humanitarian groups protest? Do you know why so many environmentalist protest? Do you know why you should protest?
Because WTO is on the path to universal patents. Less I be mistaken, some form of across the border patent recognizations already happens. Patents filed in the USA have to be accepted by all countries with a presence in USA (and that means any big company that wants to make money
So grow up. Isolating your biggest market is not a good idea for any company. Suberting a plugin installing with an additional click doesn't hurt anyone.
now supporting:
cmdrTaco for president '04
michael for oval office intern summer '05
Now, don't get me wrong; I don't think there's anything wrong with a browser downloading Flash, or data in any other format.
What I find really annoying is that current browsers insist that they are going to handle a list of file formats themselves, in their own window, and you can't do anything about it.
If they were forced to give me the option of saying to handle MIME type foo/bar in a separate app, that would be a huge improvement.
For example, on my cute new Powerbook, I've found that I can't feed things like Flash or XML to an independent app. The browsers (IE, mozilla, Safari) insist that they will handle those themselves, with their standard plugin. It doesn't matter whether I have an app of my own to handle them; my attempts to add the handler to the list are rebuffed.
The XML case is especially annoying. I'me testing some XML apps, and I'd really like to use some of them as plugins. I've asked a couple of times in the usual mozilla fora, and the answer seems to be "Tough luck; we're smarter than you, and we know how to handle XML, so we won't let you do it." Right. Their XML handler chokes on the slightest syntax error, fails to show any of the text, and thus gives a big middle finger to any poor schmuck trying to debug his XML generator.
Similarly, when I download MP3s or MIDI files to mozilla on my Powerbook, it insists on feeding them to the embedded Quicktime, and ignores my attempts to use a separate handler. The Quicktime plugin has only a dumb slider for backspacing, plus start/stop buttons. You can't do anything with the data at all. Again, I asked in a couple of newsgroups, and was told in no uncertain terms that I'm too stupid to know how to do such things, and I should just leave it to my betters.
It's interesting that on my linux box, MP3 and MIDI can be handed off by mozilla to a separate app. This lets me do lots of interesting stuff with those formats. But with mozilla on my Powerbook, the same thing doesn't work.
If "seamless" plugins are eliminated, maybe we can get browsers that are friendly to not-so-dumb users. It would be really useful (especially for XML and MIDI) if we could point to a separate app to handle all files of any specific type.
Actually, I suspect that the ability to do this might be buried in the current browsers. But it doesn't do me much good if I can't learn how to use it. And note that, with mozilla, Preferences -> Navigator -> Helper Applications doesn't allow one to override the builtin handling of some types (such as XML). Some types are handled by builtin plugins, and if they don't do what you need, tough.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
It's almost obvious--- how do you maintain a total monopoly on the web without getting caught?
Have some someone sue the only open aspect of your product.
Who is this really affecting? Quicktime, Real Media, Macromedia, SUN (Java).... all of those things that Microsoft has hated all those years it can now shut-out and remove from IE and tell every Webmaster on Earth to conform to their new standard because of the lawsuit.
Of course Microsoft will have the advantage because Real, SUN etc... will not have the changes made to the browser and will have to start development after the release (this is just speculation... but Microsoft will still have some advantage since they develop the product).
Ultimately this whole lawsuit is furthering Microsoft's grasp on the WWW.
Here's a few MSFT software patents.
Bill Gates started out very critical of software patentability, but now that microsoft are the dominant monopoly rather than the darling new industry players, he's switched sides. Patents are, and have always been, a way for industry incumbents to fight upstarts. The "rewarding inventors" line has always been pure propaganda - for every inventor they reward, many are crushed. That's why one of the first things Americans did when leaving the British Empire was stop honouring British patents.
That said, IBM are the largest software patenters, not microsoft.
No, copyright is not patent, but Microsoft holds both.
Choice of masters is not freedom.
This affects everything embeded in a web page that runs as a plugin, so get off your high-flash-hating-horse and get a clue.
Besides, Flash does not suck. What does suck is using Flash inappropriately.
Take a bit of time to understand this case; either Eolas wins and Microsoft gets screwed pretty heartily or Microsoft wins and Patents on software are weakened some way or another. They can't rule that this patent doesn't apply or else all patents don't apply. They can rule something like "the function is significantly different" or some BS like that, but then the goverment looses even more credibility and respect and it generates controversy.
And those of you who thing the OSS community will loose out have another thing coming to you. Eolas is a patent creation company, they make inventions and lisence them out to other companies to be used. Read their "vision"
To create and develop the inventions that allow information technologies to enhance the quality of life for everyone.
OSS is for everyone, anything under GPL is for everyone. MS on the other hand is stifling this so they are going after MS, plus they can get some dough. I may be wrong, and they might be a company run by greedy bastards but if they were, they'd sue a smaller companys first and work their way up. It just doesn't make logical sense for them to be the bad guys.
It's a win-win sitution for the people. Either software patents are weakened or MS gets hit upside the head with a sledge and their browsers are insuperior to the likes of mozilla. Besides, how many companies are going to recode their entire plugin so they'll work with IE? I'd find it cheaper to push the customer base onto mozilla short term and start new projects long term.
Candy-Coated Knowledge
The round hole is HTTP, and the square peg is the notion that a web site is a video or movie, an animated entity, an event-driven application, interactive somethingorother, or any of the other things it really isn't.
Where I work they put someone in charge of our web site who has done video production, and lo and behold, she wanted to make the web site into a video. She eventually got her way, and a zillion bytes of flash later, the site sucks to look at, is hard to navigate and they bitch that they can't tell what people are looking at from site reports since...it's all a huge flash "application".
A whole mess of reactions to this:
They are stuck between a rock and a hard place now. It sounds like there is a viable business model out there of "patent something really obvious then sue Microsoft for patent violation". As the biggest fish out there they are clearly the most attractive target, given a sufficently 'strong' case. On the other hand, Microsoft's patent portfolio is its ultimate trump card and which they are presumably saving for the final defence, in the event that open source starts to seriously affect their viability. They can't suddenly start lobbying to remove patent protection without invalidating their own portfolio too.
They brought it upon themselves.
Call me an optimist, but I have a strong feel in my right gut that Eolas will provide dual licensure for the patent, similar to Trolltech and Qt, where free software (BSD, GPL, Artistic license) gains free use and closed-source has to pay a "reasonable" fee.
Reason I think this is that (a) legally, it's a pain in the colon for lawyers to sue open sourcers; (b) it's horrible PR, just look at that company in Utah. Then again, lawyers tend to not give a flaming f--- about reasonable measures.
And to be clear, I hope to high heaven that they get as much of the $5 x 10^8 they can, because UC could _really_ use that cash to defray what the state's screwing them out of.
just don't mod me down, please.
I used to be someone else. Now I'm someone better.
Real life is underrated.
I have often wished I could uninstall plugins more easily. In 'doze I know of no good way to do it other than uninstalling the product (Flash, Acrobat, Quicktime, whatever ...). I have done this on more than one occasion.
Adobe Acrobat is an example. IMO, the plugin version is far worse than the standalone version. You don't have proper access to all the controls, file management, printing, and full-screen mode. At least I don't know how to access them. I have the same problem with many of the media players.
Flash is a bane. With Mozilla I can block image and pop-up ads but the Flash plugin is an open wound for infection with annoying ads. Flash is not alone - just the other the tell-tale cup-o-java appeared in an ad. Fortunately Java is so slow that I was able to ax it before it started.
So for the most part I'll be happy to see the world revert back to launching stand-alone helper applications. I want to use my browser for browsing, not playing video games.
Most universities and large business sift through the fruits of their employees' work and look for intellectual property that can be patented and possibly licensed or traded like any other property of real value. It helps them cover their investment (capitalism, and all that stuff). Heck, I found out a couple of months ago that I am the holder of two patents that had been filed by an old, old employer. You can be a patent holder and not even know it. Most of us sign something when hired by a company assigning the company exclusive license to intellectual property developed there in the course of one's work.
Having actually done some research on this Eolas patent and how it relates to the Microsoft judgement, I found out some interesting stuff that should be considered before we all condemn this in a knee-jerk response to the infringement this places on our freedom to develop software.
A few guys were working at the University of California and developed a plugin technology with the old NSCA Mosaic browser that allowed a server to ship executable content down the line along with the HTML and then have the browser do things it couldn't do before. Routinely, a patent application was filed by their employer on this work. The guys who did the work thought that this was neat technology and worked a deal with the University that they could try to maybe get this technology out into the wider world, and so, as there was a patent filed on it already, they worked an exclusive licensing agreement with the University.
So these guys form a company and start making calls on the big players in the Internet technology world at the time. They visit Microsoft, demonstrate this plug-in technology and the cool things that it would allow a browser to do, and received a big yawn and sent on their way with a "don't call us, we'll call you" sort of brush-off. They call on a number of other Silicon Valley companies, but these guys aren't businessmen, they're academics. They don't know how the commercial IP game is played. The end result is a lot of people in a lot of companies was this technology and took a pass on licensing it into their own products (which most probably would have been very, very cheap to do back then).
Time passes. These same companies start enhancing browsers with their own plug-in technologies for executable content. No action is taken initially by these guys. Finally, Microsoft starts to dominate Netscape. Attempts are made to reopen discussions by these guys and are rebuffed. These guys start involving lawyers to try to get Microsoft's attention. These attempts are rebuffed too. Finally, they file suit against Microsoft for patent infringement. Many years pass as Microsoft makes motion after motion in hearing after hearing to have the suit dismissed and each time, fails. But they achieve one of their goals which is to delay the proceedings significantly. Meanwhile, the Internet bubble comes and goes. There are many products that now do this plug-in sort of thing. The idea becomes obvious because everyone sees it going on around them in other products. Finally, the patent infringment suit against Microsoft goes to trial. After many weeks of trial in which mountains of evidence are presented by Microsoft, twelve regular joes on the jury aren't convinced that there was (1) prior art or prior effort on Microsoft's part, (2) lack of knowledge by Microsoft about the invention or patent (2) or an invalid patent granted to the University of California.
The Federal jury trial found for Eolas and against Microsoft on all counts. Apparently the evidence was so strong that jury deliberations took just one day. You can say what you want about jury trials, but having seen what judges have done, or not done, when the decision is theirs alone [when Microsoft was found gui
But this is all amazingly silly. This is so obvious to a "practitioner of the art" that the patent office should have instantly rejected it. Displaying data where it's requested is a fundamental notion. And invoking a program based on its type is also a fundamental notion. COM and DCOM were developed specifically for this reason, for example: to enable in-line display and manipulation of data. They both precede this patent (COM certainly does) making them prior art.
The patent wasn't even filed until October 17, 1994. But Java was publicly demonstrated on September 1992 (originally called Oak), and Safe-TCL came out in 1992 as well. It wouldn't surprise me if they also met this patent, and were prior art too.
This is a junk patent that needs revoking.
- David A. Wheeler (see my Secure Programming HOWTO)
I first heard about this lawsuit back in '99-2000. After watching what Amazon was able to get away with vs. B&N, I knew the s**t would hit the fan sooner or later.
MS has known about this for 3+ years, and didn't do much to stem the tide of something bad happening about this until now. All of the web developers complaining about how this will affect future development plans can thank MS for being so forthcoming these past years and warning them that something like this might happen. Instead they waited to spring the news that this might be bad for developers 3 years later, after the embedded stuff had a chance to further mature, and more people bought into the technology. I know, I know, they can't comment on pending litigation, but it sure seems to me like they left a lot of people high and dry.
Everyone seems to not be noticing that this action will probably play to microsofts interests. Of course MS would rather not pay 0.5 Billion dollars in penaties but now that they are they can tunr this to their advantage. here's how.
.NET the killer app. MS would love to see plug-ins die, especiall y if they die for other browsers too. What's left to step in its place then? basically two things, .NET and a chaos of non-standard solutions.
.NET is part of our OS and the browser had to be integrated there's no other solutions due the breadth of the EOLAS patent.
.NET and other fee based licesced extensions for MS.
1) it makes
2) MS would love to be able to go to the judge and say, look we had to integrate the broswer into the OS. there was no other way since it lost all its stand-alon functionality.
3) MS can appeal and maybe ret the 0.5 billion penalty reduced. and they can string along the usefulness of IE till 2005 when longhorn emerges. then pfft. MS will say EOLAS was totally right and has a solid case against us and all the other browsers. And here's our payment in full so you can fund your legal effort.
4) Maybe MS will invest another 0.5 billion and buy the IP from EOLAS. its will have been tested in court and they could shutdown all the other browsers that didn't use
we're hosed.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
As I'm sure many others have said, I can't stand plugins and all that, and have never installed Flash and have Java turned off. So good, perhaps this patent will rid the web of those irritating flash only web sites.
Maybe this will spur M$ support for SVG in their browsers, as I believe that qualifies as a standard, not a plugin. Oh, hey, and maybe there will be fewer word, excel, and powerpoint files on the web. Hooray hooray.
For both the plugins and the "moving hotspot" hyperlink technology Eolas describes on their webpages, I see Apple/Claris's HyperCard as being prior art. In fact, hypercard was the first web browser, except that it wasn't connected to the internet. Apple should sue everyone... Stupid Eolas. Do something useful instead of patenting broad, "fundemnatal" ideas. I hope MS crushes you.
god's lonely man
Debunking the "59 Deceits"
No large patent holder has to actually do this. IBM holds the most patents and they said in their "Think" magazine that they get 10X the value from cross-licensing that they do from licensing patents. Considering suing for infringement involves spending money, not necessarily making money, it stands to reason that cross-licensing would still be far more valuable than winning patent infringement lawsuits too.
Also, consider the scare factor.
RMS happened to browse the weekly patent column in the New York Times when he came across a listing for a patent that appeared to cover a data compression method that the GNU project was going to use in a compressor they were about to release. That patent, and the implicit threat of losing an infringement lawsuit, killed this program before it was released. Nobody had to sue the FSF to get this result. Later the GNU project released gzip which went on to become a defacto standard, but it would have been nice if we could compete (as you say) "on actually making and selling software" instead of locking up ideas in an artificial economy so as to kill competition before it has a chance to benefit the end-user. RMS describes the experience and explodes the myth of patents benefitting software developers in his talk (or if you prefer, read the transcript).
Bill Gates once said:Patents push people into an arms race of sorts--as Gates obliquely illustrates, the patent system makes people react out of fear, not what's in the best interests of community or consumers. By creating this system and issuing software patents, the US Government has abdicated any desire to allow consumers to benefit by picking from a healthy competitive marketplace. After hearing what RMS has to say, I don't see how anyone can come away thinking those who don't sue for infringement are substantially better than those who do.
Digital Citizen
Okay, implement that.
Oh, and while you're at it, add in another feature that allows you to auto-click OK on different kinds of dialog boxes that popup (even before they show on screen). I, as a user, can set that "macro" to accept all requests for Flash, applets, etc.
There's my contribution to keeping embedded object semi-free.
Jay Jennings
you're confusing patents with copyrights. copyrights cover code and other "text".
in the wonderful world of patents, you don't even have to create anything to make a shit load of money.
all you have to do is spend a lot of money and convince the patent office that you have some new idea. in the last ten years or so, technology companies have begun taking advantage of the patent office's obvious ignorance regarding anything more complex than a horse and carriage, particularly computer and internet "technologies".
now we've got bottom-feeder parasites like amazon and ebola (er whatever the fu** the company is called) patenting intentionally broad and vague ideas and then figuring out ways to apply their silly patents to other people's actual creations.
plugins have been around since about the time ebola obtained their patent (i believe). chances are the patent author saw the plugin model about to emerge and then obtained the patent.
then he waited a few years for a big ripe victim. what better victim than M$. everyone but dumb end users, pseudo geeks and managers hate M$. who's going to sympathize with them? virtually nobody. GO GET EM, the crowd cheers, not realizing the long term damage being done. legitimizing these absurdly broad and useless patents threatens the future of technology as a whole. who knows what patent parasites will strike you when you come up with a great idea?
amazon, ebola and all other companies that attempt to make a payday out of these patents are doing major damage to all users of technology. the only good patent holder is one who holds on to patent in order to protect the idea realm from patent parasites, and i don't even know that such patent holders exist.
i'm truly sick of these leeches. but all i can do is boycott (and i do) and maybe convince a few others not to cheer on the side of companies like ebola in these types of lawsuits.
You don't pay for IE, sure you probably pay for it when you buy a windows license but they don't charge for it as a stand along product. What this means is financially it won't hurt them nearly as bad as it could others. Companies that it will hurt are like macromedia and real who depend heavily on plug in functionality. User will be slow to migrate off IE so if there are annoying pop ups and stuff to use plugins people simply won't use many of them.
If your not cheating your not trying. If your not trying your not winning and if your not winning why play?
The principles of Intellecutal Property are good ones, but the US implementation certainly sucks. Both in the legislated terms (ie. 99 years continuously extended for Copy right) as well as the actual granting of obvious, unoriginal, software or buisness play patents by the patent.
Vote Quimby.
He is the same kind of heavy handed tactics that we all get pissed off at corperations and IP firms for. He is trying to use patents as a weapon, not a tool.
Patents are SUPPOSED to be for making money. The idea is that if you are an inventor that comes up with some new brilliant processor or design, you can protect it so everyone can't just rip you off. People will have to pay you license fees for access to your idea. This is good for small inventors that have the skills to invent but lack the capital for production, and for large research firms, that spend billions of dollars to develop a new material or something that is cheap to produce, but was expensive to discover.
The problem is in the computer world we see lots of asshole like Rambus trying to use patents as a weapon. They try to use them purely to drive competition out of bussiness. This is anti-capatalistic and completely against teh intent of patents.
Well, that's just what this guy is doing (from the sounds of it). He wants to drive MS out of the browser market using this as a weapon. Despite the target being MS, that makes him no better than any other scum that uses patents to force away competition.
Take something like a areversed situation. Suppose I invent a new magic kernel algorithm that literally doubles the speed of all applications (I know it's not possible, but for the sake of argument). This is actually a novel process and actually something worth of a patent. So I publush it and apply for a patent. I go ahead and let everyone use it and don't say anything for years. Then I'm in a bar and Linus is there, and he and I get in a big fight in which he whips my ass six ways from Sunday. So I get all bitter and decide to enforce my patent against Linux only to make it suck. I certianly would be villified (and rightly so) for doing this.
Also the real problem is, he won't succeed in driving MS form the browser market, only making them work to lock it down tighter. Since they won't be able to do easy embedding with an open HTML solution, they'll come up with their own proprietary solution that circumvents the patent (and only work with Windows/IE). Given their size and market share, I give them a better than average chance of succeding and furthering their grip on teh browser market. In the event of a court challenge, they have this patent to point out how they TRIED to be open and interoperable (never mind how hard they tried), but got sued and so have no choice.
Do you think it is possible for a bunch of people who don't like patents to each invest in patenting ideas and then cheaply sell those patents to an organization that would then sue businesses that over use business and software patents?
I'm thinking of something where the FSF creates a Patent Division that everyone who hated patents could sell their patents for like a $1 each. Then the FSF could then turn around and sue business like SCO for being freaking idiots and trying to destroy OSS. Basically, the FSF would do what IBM is doing now. And, this would be economically sustainable in itself (they could purchase more patents when they won rulings). The key is that they would only choose to sue organizations that overzealously used software patents, as a form of social engineering through monetary punishment.
If such an organization got enough software patents, could they basically make the entire system of software patents practically useless (regardless of what "new" software patent gets created, a given business couldn't possibly be immune to ALL software patents)? Kind of using the system to destroy itself?
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!