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Company Files Motion to Stop IE Distribution
RobHornick writes "According to CNET News, Eolas Technologies, a company that's already won a patent infringement judgement against Microsoft regarding Internet Explorer, has filed a motion to stop Microsoft from distributing its IE software until they remove Eolas' patented technology for running plug-ins, or pay up for a license."
Pay up, Microsoft.
Thank goodness closed source software is free of IP issues, eh?
word! bone up the doe..
Zee Svedeesh Cheff ploogeen!! Bork Bork Bork!
Just use Firebird. I guarantee a pleasant experience!
Much as I cannot stand IE, this is just insane. Plug-ins were a nessecary step forward, and should not have been granted a patent. AND, they havent tried to enforce this for the years that IE has had plugins before. Isnt there a loss of patent if unused or unenforced?
When life gives you crap, Make Crapade.
Sluggy Freelance.
Riiiiiiiight. Because we all know how quickly Microsoft removed Internet Explorer when the whole Netscape trial was going on.
I don't know which side to be with, the evil Eolas, or the equally evil Microsoft... HELP!! :)
Respect to me Eolas boyz ! Y'all be creepin' while they sleepin', what did da MS peeps expected ?
I know that the vast majority of /. readers believe that the Net would be a better place with Internet Explorer. Hell, I'm one of them, having had to deal with the cleanup after having my users hit with its exploits.
But please realize that this patent bullshit has gone a little too far. Microsoft has already promised to patch IE to remove the offending patent work--isn't that enough? What we are all witnessing is the tyranny of the patent system as we know it. Just because it negatively affects Microsoft for once doesn't mean that it's good in any way.
Let's do what we can to get this mess straightened out once and for all for the good of the economy and innovation. Let's not rejoice in this unfair punishment.
Karma: Excellent Birds (mostly as a result of listening to Laurie Anderson)
the money is going to come out of the user/customer's pocket...
Consensus is good, but informed dictatorship is better
Booo! We hate software patents!
Master wouldn't betray us, would he? What are we to think?
I thought distribution of IE should be stopped for security reasons.
Since IE is so integrated into Windows, would that mean stopping shipment/sales of Windows as well?
That they have to stop selling Windows to people/corps? After all IE is part of their OS, so anyone selling PCs with Windows on it is distributing software that was illegally infringing Eolas' patent. The crooks.
Anti-social? My code is just platform-specific.
The Redmond, Wash., software giant asked for the new trial, citing several factors, including the unusual proportions of the jury's judgment and the court's refusal to allow discussion of some prior art or similar technology that Microsoft believes predated the Eolas patent and should therefore invalidate it.
Microsoft mentioned one piece of prior art in particular, the Viola browser, invented by Perry Pei-Yuan Wei, an artist, software engineer and then a student at the University of California at Berkeley. That browser dates back to 1991 and its plug-in capabilities to 1992, nearly two years before Eolas filed for its patent.
Once again, prior art popping up. So, this whole thing will probably get turned on its head after about 3 more years of litigation.
Sigh.
evil adrian
Well, since there has been prior art demonstrated, the EFF and others would surely pay to defend Mozilla, using prior art found by the open source community. However, eolas will most likely not even come after Mozilla. Hopefully, they just mess up IE (and thus Windows - "We can't seperate it") distribution for awhile. It could be an even bigger headache if they only go after MS, thus the patent not getting ruled invalid, unless MS decides to appeal. Hopefully, they'll just give the patent away to W3C or something after they extort plenty from MS, and do their "shake-up" of the browser market. But, this is a Good Thing(TM) - people are being educated of what software patents can do - make you click OK 100 times in a session.
And since Microsoft has said that it's not possible to separate the browser from the OS, that would mean...
to stop Microsoft from distributing its IE software until they remove Eolas' patented technology for running plug-ins, or pay up for a license.
or reach a multi-million $$$ out of court settlement like that reached with Be inc over alleged misuse of monolopy - the type of settlement in which the details are hidden from public scrutiny.
Wonder what the world would be like if Microsoft were forced to not distribute IE? Not that it'll ever happen.
What do you expect?
There were probably 12 dumbasses sitting on the jury who in their periphery have heard that M$ is bad and are evil. And that geek Gates is a billionaire which means he must be bad...
Unless the patent office can figure out just what prior art means there should be a moratorium on the issuance of patents.
Karma means nothing to me, so suck it...
Web developers face the possibility of having to significantly rewrite their pages or strip them of commonly used technologies like Macromedia's Flash.
Gentlemen, the tech employment slump is now over!
Please raise your hourly rates by $10.
$20 if you do Java Server pages, a bad idea whose time has come (disclaimer: I do JSPs).
Time to dig out those hookers' business cards!
(And the office foosball table suppliers' cards too!)
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
I don't understand that a company could be so anal about its IP when it promotes the development of OpenTcl.
I Swear, God as my witness, I thought Turkeys could fly!!
Okay, it's crazy enough that Microsoft was ordered to pay $521 Million for a period of two years, especially when you consider that this is free software. (I realize it's highly important to Microsoft in that it killed Netscape, but they don't actually charge money for it.)
But to then pay licensing fees on top of that? It's a little absurd, and just makes Eolas look like opportunists.
And I especially love this line: Eolas has also calculated that Microsoft owes it about $111 million in interest on that award.
21.3% interest on $521 Million. What are they, a credit card company?
So far it appeared that websites had until about January to gear up for changes - now if this ruling comes to pass, websites that earn income from Flash ads could find themselves caught in a bad spot...
..." dialogue boxes are going to cause big time problems - beyond making many sites more combersome to use, such frequent clicking is going to only increase the chance of people accidently clicking open some nasty stuff.
..." dialogue box nonsense.
* Do nothing and watch the complaints roll in as folks bitch about lots of pop-up warning prompts; some will even think the warning dialogue boxes are pop-up ads themselves - geez!
* Continue to accept Flash ads, but add javascript and other nonsense to make them display with little or no warning messages - fine for many sites, but some sites don't use javascript anywhere for various reaons. So what to do?
* Discontinue Flash ads (sure that makes many happy), but the loss of ad revenues will cause some sites to either use all sorts of bizarre scripting or reduce services due to lost revenues.
Not sure the solution here. For as much as I personally don't care for Flash (nothing wrong with Flash per se, but is often over used and forced upon visitors) the addition of "Press OK
One possible solution, for as much as I don't care for Micro$oft at times, is for them to either fight this guy's IP claim to the max -or- settle and not change the browser -or- a long shot, find another way to get around the guy's IP claim without the zillion "Press OK
Lastly, if anyone is aware of a work-around to smoothly displaying Flash without using Javascript, please post and/or email to me. Thanks!
Ron
Everyone knows what is going to happen here. MS cannot/will-not remove the infringing code from IE, and neither will they pay these fools for using the code.
Obviously it will be Billy-boy to the rescue buying-out this company for an undisclosed amount (+$500 million). Billy will sell the company to MS for tax write-offs and MS will use the patents to give Linux & Apple a good high-colonic.
unusual proportions of the jury's judgment
it sounds like the jury has been forced to use microsoft products and finally got to give some payback for all of the frustration they've suffered.
go figure.
...but i actualy have to support MS on this one, because a plugin is a pretty obvious progression in web browser technology. I mean this is a pretty BS pattent. If it were secret corprate technology, or stolen source code, I'd be the first person with a torch and pitchfork at Bill Gates door, but it's not. If this holds up in court imagine the possibilites for other lawsuits. Imagine how much the first person to walk and chew bubble gum at the same time would receive.
I like replies better than Karma, even if they are flames, because that tells me I got someone thinking.
A windows system can work without IE, I tore ie out of win98 on vmware and the system survived, used mozilla ad the default browser.. it's kinda decent now.
not by much.
See, when this type of crap crops up, just migrate over to Mozilla. Firebird is a better browser then IE any way you look at it.
....pop a cap in this asshole of a company? As soon as they get through pulling MSs chain they are going after Opera, AOL, and anyone else that has a browser with a plugin. I say microsoft should buy these fuckers and liquidate their asses. Would you like this to happen to RedHat or some other favorite company? I'm so sick of patent abuse.
they would have to stop distributing Windows?
A few weeks back, an article mentioned that Ray Ozzie demo'ed a very old version of Notes that supposedly proved the existence of prior art in the Eolas patent. Anyone know the status?
I still can't believe it when I read the court case for Amazon's 1-click patent. Apparently the *expert* witness could not figure out how Amazon would be able to sell something to people with just one click... apparently he had never heard of cookies... and this was one of the biggest reasons Amazon won, because it seemed possible that this was actually a revolutionary idea.
But back to my main point, where do people draw the line for giving a software patent? I read that microsoft patented the IM feature to see when somebody is typing something back. That is dumb. But is the only thing that we are ok with somebody patenting is something that is like a compression algorithm that is so hard to understand that we say the guy must have been smarter than me that made it?
I think the patent system is ok as it is, provided we have high quality patent lawyers out there that know how to code and maybe are able to put RAM into their computer... from my perspective, the patent system seems to be more angled toward granting a patent than not granting a patent. So its quite possible that you get a patent even though the quality of the invention is pretty lame.
I think my view on software patents is this. If any software at all can be found that had the feature before being patented by some other company, then its in public domain and not patentable. The thing is, is that alot of great ideas show up in software people make for all sorts of reasons, but few people besides companies have the money to get a patent that usually costs about 10-20 grand.
Seems to describe this situation absolutely perfectly.
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
Can we just save the moderators points and moderate this entire story as redundent? That way we can avoid the string of "I patent..." jokes, the "who do we hate today?" line of questions and woefully bad attempts at citing prior art without even reading the patent in the first place.
Wait wasn't it Microsoft who claimed that IE and Windows are one integrated product? I think the injuction should be against the *integrated* product which is Windows (all versions) not just the explorer component which according to Microsoft can't be removed from Windows without disabling Windows.
Hmm. Eolas is the Irish Gaelic word for "knowledge" or "information". I registered a limited company called OLAS (O'Leary Application Systems) in Dublin in 1992, and traded as "eOLAS" (yes, yes, I know it was stupid but I was young and enjoyed the wordplay). Never operated outside continental Europe though, so I don't suppose I can sue Eolas, can I?
This is one guy, not a corporation representing a group of money-grubbing shareholders. As others have mentioned before, this person simply hates Microsoft. I imagine he would rather stop the distribution of IE and not get a dime than be bought out for a few measly millions of dollars.
no people will not switch browsers. if a browser does not come with MS and is not located in the prefered position MOST users, that is the majority of the comsumers, will not use it. Thus IE will remain a standard and websites will comply or die. Sure a few may write special versions for multiple browsers but whose going to be writing the plugins? Unless theres a market to sell plugins the flash producers of the world are going to shrink in number.
Perhaps you think I overestimate consumer laziness. Well BMG just copyprotected all of their CDs. Anyone cany defeat the copy protection by, get this, holding down the shift key when inserting the disk. BMG acknowledges this wont stop some people but believes it will thwart the majority. They have reason to believe in consumer laziness.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Intel and a couple of Comms companies have ruthlessly applied their wins to shut out competition.
MS has not been 'kind' when it had wins, and BE, STACK and DRDOS did not fair too well.
Eolas can argue that since MS is adding so many features in new products , bringing out security fixes and service packs, and lodging IM like patents, it is not devoting sufficient resources to correcting the violation. 2 weeks seems ample time given the number of programmers has to make this so.
The fact that MS can put a critical update to auto download, and then break lots of the users own webpages - can be done.
Web developers face the possibility of having to significantly rewrite their pages or strip them of commonly used technologies like Macromedia's Flash.
Surely this can only be a good thing?
Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.
You know how every politician complains about "corruption of the system" while claiming to be above it all? Well, companies are similarly two-faced about abuses of patents. Jeff Bezos helped form a committee some time ago to combat the abuses of patents. The hypocricy was quite apparent. Here you had the man behind the most absurd of recent patents--one click shopping--claiming to be behind patent reform.
Even if Microsoft loses billions of dollars on this case, they will not want patents to go away. They may want "reform" of the system, where reform is custom tailors to uphold Microsoft's patents, but invalidate everyone elses. Never will Microsoft say, "You know, maybe we shouldn't have a patent on typing notification over IM." To truly want reform, they will have to call for an end to all patent abuses, especially their own.
Microsoft will forever be too proud to let this happen. This is the same company that still denies being a monopoly, let alone abusing their monopoly position, even after both have been settled in the court of law!
I for one think MS should stop the propritary BS and help to standardize. It is ironic that a company based on end-user liscense refuses to pay for something that enables them to keep their products the only solution. For me, I play XBox on their LIVE network because I am a Linux user and gaming is more pain than pleasure on that OS. The sad part is that I cannot view their game trailers from home because of their dang imbedded media player and internal URL system. So I have to rely on third party sites to convert it to a format I can view like QT. Back to the browser issue. There are standard for a reason. Knowledge belongs to the world, not one company to dissiminate as it sees fit.
I was about to criticize ebolas or whatever there name is for this abuse of the patent system. But then I read this:
Web developers face the possibility of having to significantly rewrite their pages or strip them of commonly used technologies like Macromedia's Flash.
I choked back tears of joy .. could this mean .. NO MORE FLASH BULLSHIT!! Oh MY F'n GOD! Let it happen please!! Please please!! I don't care if I have to visit every site in Lynx from now on, the fact that I could even USE Lynx to visit some of these sites would be a breakthrough.
So, here's hoping Ebola wins, kills two of the most annoying things on the internet (IE and Flash), and then goes far away to celebrate with their awarded money (leaves Apple and Mozilla alone in other words). That would really rock!!
(of course, it won't happen. MS will bog them down in the courts, they'll settle for approximately what their legal bill is, and then they'll come to Mozilla and Apple for some smaller, but easier, payout. And the government will still be collecting patent application fees for this crap.)
It is complete hypocrisy for the OSS crowd to support this sort of extortion and at the same time condemn the SCO lawsuit.
Either you're for frivolous IP lawsuit extortion, or you're against it. I am against it, and so I hope Eolas gets what's coming to them.
This is no different than what SCO is doing to Linux. I do wish that there were other browsers with significant market share, but this is the wrong way to go about achieving this. The right way to achieve this is to sit down and CODE!
Supporting this sort of thing lends credibility to things like the SCO lawsuit and brands us as hypocrites.
Don't agree with the silly patent but it couldn't happen to a nicer company!
Isn't it enough for the bank robber to put the money back?
A: No, he still stole something. He needs to pay for the crime by doing the time. In this case, MS has been found guilty of infringing, and now Eolas is saying "ok, now stop distributing entirely or start paying royalties". Sounds 100%, completely, totally fair to me.
Please help metamoderate.
Please stop saying the words "open", "anal", and "Tickle" in the same sentence it gives me the willies and makes me squirm in my seat. wooooaaah! yech.
What's the point of suing the richest company in the world.. You aren't going to win. At best they are just going to buy you out, and if they do that, they'll probably do it in such a way that you won't make any money out of the deal.
"piss on microsoft, let them suffer"
Problem is they are NOT the only offender.. most all browswers are in the same boat..
If they go after Konq next.. im sure there will be an outcry...
This is way out of hand, though it IS their patent, and their right to enforce it.... we cant have it both ways
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Guess that would mean that MS wouldn't be able to sell any of thier OS's since IE is actually part of the OS as microsoft insists. Hmm... Guess that would mean all stores that have a preinstalled PC's sitting on the shelves would not be able to sell them as well. I would actually like to see this injunction be put inplace just to put MS in its place about forcing software on its end users reguardless if they want the software or not. On another note something needs to be done about Patents remaining in limbo untill somone decides its time to make money off of it since its well in major distribution.
Who needs WiFi when we can have Packet Over Sheep! http://datacomm.org/PoS-InternetDraft.txt
I'm a bit concerned about this, for a different reason.
Microsoft evidently has some sort of alternative way to write pages that make calls to plug-ins now; this was featured a day or two ago in another story on this subject.
Is there a possibility that they might leverage this new markup syntax to encourage web page authors to write pages that make it difficult/impossible for other browsers to load the plugins?
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
AC comments get piped to
Patents should be for electro or mechanical devices . PERIOD.
Software is more like copyrights for books. PERIOD.
Someone SUE the damn patent office . Out of control!!
I have always said: The psycho American legal system is turning out more and more of a liability. Wouldn't surprise me if it turned out that the last act of the Soviet Union was to establish the patent office...then again, in the Soviet Union, the patent office...
They are, actualy 1 guy is. This is exactly what is meant when people talk about malicious applications of patent. He has no desire or goal but to cause Microsoft pain. And while all the ./ crowd is in their mom's basement giggling and pretending that xbox doesn't own them; if this can be done to a company with nearly endless resources to throw at the problem, what'll happen when someone comes for your free software?
It is very scary that a single person can extort a half of a billion dollars from one of the most powerfull (if not the most powerfull) company on the face of the earth.
Software Patents must be repealed !
If you want more info on the whole story check out Jeffrey Zelman's site here.
The only good out of this mess is that Microsoft itself is effected by these stupid patent rules. This way, they may act to force congress to change the rules so that we can have innovation. The modified rules will not only be good for Microsoft but also for the open source too.
By the way, one mentioned that Microsoft also uses patents, but I have never heard anything like this. So I guess he is blatantly lying to bash Microsoft.
Microsoft can't have it both ways.
I've read a lot of posts attacking Eolas in support of Microsoft and IE. However when you consider the following, MS deserves to get screwed on this one.
A long time ago, when people were using Mosaic, the proprietor of Eolas invented the plugin technology. He showed this technology to Microsoft who poo-pooed it. Fast-forward several months and Microsoft's adds plugins in IE. Microsoft gets sued, litigation ensures while the browser wars and Y2K come and go. Whether or not you agree with software patents, there is no doubt Microsoft screwed this guy. I highly doubt the jury would have given Eolas the case if MS had not done this.
MS gets hundreds of patents per year and the only reason they don't make a big stink about it is because they can (currently) make plenty of money with out creating a huge PR stink (and possibly more monopoly litigation).
Eolas's plugin technology was first demoed in 1993 and patented in 1994. The concept of Flash / SVG and plugins in general might seem obvious after years of ubigious browser support, however it was a significant invention in the early 90's.
Microsoft takes full advantage of the patent system with aggressive patents like the typing indicator in IM, databased online polls and Microsoft's numerous other pre-emptive patents to curtail competition.
I don't believe that Microsoft/Macromedia/et al's lame fix of document.write'ing the / tag instead of having them directly on the page gets around the patent. It simply stinks of a PR move to make Eolas look bad (lookie, he's wreaking the web) while not addressing the patent.
In general I don't support software patents, but Microsoft deserves to eat dirt on this one.
It is complete hypocrisy for the OSS crowd to support this sort of extortion and at the same time condemn the SCO lawsuit.
No, there is a difference. Eolas has an actual patent, and is enforcing it according to the rules ; they got a verdict in court that says MS is infringing, and are stating their terms to bring MS into compliance.
SCO, as far as anyone can tell, is making crap up based on no sound legal theory anyone has heard of (one day it's contract dispute, next day it's copyright infringement, and apparently they think "know-how"is a form of intellectual property) and expecting people to fork over money for a license (or, alternately, buy their stock).
Jay (=
for recognizing my earlier beat it fp.
just beat it.
Go for it. Just for some background so you actually know what you are talking about when you attempt it, I suggest reading the judgement of State Street Bank v. Signature Financial Group 149 F.3d 1368 (Fed.Cir.1998) to find out how these software patents started to be allowed.
You would have to overturn a Federal Circuit Court decision which is only 5 years old, something which I'm pretty sure doesn't happen to often, although this case apparently didn't get taken to the supreme court, so you may have a chance.
I hope this kills ie, i don't really care if it takes mozilla and it's replicants down with it. Any browser that allows a 2 bit web page author control over anything outside of the browser window sucks. Disabling or hiding buttons, pop-ups, cookies, new windows, flash, and the rest of the "web page ownzxor u" (^sp whatever) crap.Many people may disagree with me, but i think the current state and direction of browser "technology" is neither impressive or necessary. if i wanted to view a video, i would rather download it; the same with any other file. i don't care about advertisers or their revenue. i don't care if anyone even earns a living off of the internet, why should i? Bloated browsers and "feature rich" web pages have turned the "information super highway" into the "congested super market parking lot".
--- keep it real, peace
I know this isn't simply about the broad subject about plugins. It's about how blugin's and browsers communicate. That's all i know. Where are the details on the particulars that are in layman terms (not the patent)?
--
"I'm not bright. Big words confuse me. But Wanda loves me and that should be enough for you." - Cosmo
pattent were made to make money. exclusively.
..
and if they were not, today they are only used at this goal.
anyway, we all went to the toilet, so we all broke an IBM pattent: the infamous 6,329,919
" System and method for providing reservations for restroom use "
http://patft.uspto.gov/...
I am still amazed that this patent is still reachable. The very fact that it exist demonstrate the ridiculness of patents...
oh well
america, for non americans, is funy.
What does this Eolas company do anyway? Even though Microsoft is completely insane, this company is acting a lot like SCO. It's the whole "pay up or die" methodology of the insane state of the patenting system. Does this company only exist for suing other companies? Their "about us" profile mentioned at the word Eolas means "knowledge". Intellectual Property anyone?
#Secret Windows Source Code, in MS C% - if (uptime >= "24 hours") then bsod() else print "Windows License Violation!"
Why do I have this feeling that Microsoft will pay Eolas US$400 million to buy the technology lock, stock and barrel? Given Microsoft's huge liquid cash reserves such a payment would be pocket change to the company.
Mind you, if MS does buy out Eolas they could cause no end of trouble for Netscape, Konqueror and Opera, since the non-MS browsers loads plugins in a very similar fashion.
Yes, I know it won't come to that.
No electrons were harmed creating this post, though some may have been subjected to electrical and/or magnetic fields.
Check out Ray Ozzie's take on this:
v in gTheBrowser.html
http://www.ozzie.net/blog/stories/2003/09/12/sa
As much as I hate Microsoft and IE and I'm all about anyone really putting it to them, this is retarded. Really, really, retarded.
Truth, Just Us, And Hatred For All Mankind!
funny how part of M$'s defense relies on the fact that this browser technology was was used by a student at the University of California by the name of Perry Pei- Yuan Wei, in his browser called Viola. Predating the patent by 2 years, therefore invalidating the patent, According to M$. According this article M$ has filed for a patent that has existed in software 4 years+ ago!!! Loook, M$ eating their own shit. When will it stop? When I STOP IT.
Eolas, the company that sued Microsoft back in 1999 for alleged violation of its browser plug-in patent, was awarded $521 million by a Chicago jury on Monday.
The thing about sensational jury awards is that they usually end up getting reduced later. For example, in the McDonalds coffee case the jury awarded $2.7 million in punative damages, but the judge later reduced the award to only $480k.
Microsoft was found in violation, and they're probably not going to overturn that. But half a bil is a ridiculous award, as anyone can see.
-a
It was written in Objective-C ! So, if Lee-Berners wrote the tag to object routine like "generate class name from tag" it could use plug-ins, because Objective-C is that dynamic. Even if the routine for the generation of objects from tags didn't do it that way, but resided within on objective-C class, this class could be overriden (at runtime) to construct new classes for new tags. So: if somebody wants, the original binary could be used to display - lets say - quicktime.
This is a real trivial patent. Its ashame that the judges have no clue about computers. You can tell them anything - just make sure that you have some analogies to something they know...
Is it just me or has the world gone completely mad? This is just crazy.
Sounds bad for the open source web browser. If M$ buys out Eolas and its "patented plug-in technology," where does that leave browsers like Mozilla and Konquer. Those browsers will have to pay Billy and Friends to use their "innovative" technology.
I suggest you check the following URL before saying Ep;as invented anything. By the way this fucking piece of ballocks affects every browser curently in use, as they all work the say way. in terms of using a tag to specify a applet.
e .h tml
http://www.xcf.berkeley.edu/~wei/viola/violaHom
Someone else has probably mentioned this, or you may even find it in a article or two somewhere.
I see this as an interesting dilema for software patents in general.
If the patent is upheld in the appeal then it forces MS to change the way their browser works (probably making plugin capabilities totally incompatible with anything else out there) or they will just use some underhanded predatory method of aquiring the patent (like that is unexpected from MS). Either way it will eventually have a serious impact on the alternative browsers.
If MS does successfuly defeat the patent ruling then it opens the flood gates for many other software patents, obvious ones and others with clear prior art that was ignored in the original ruling, to be over-ruled and let out into the public.
Amazon's one click technology is one example that could be dragged back through the courts. It seems that this is one patent that comes through as pretty obvious once you discover how to really use and abuse cookies.
Eolas: "That might change in the future, if they continue to refuse the deal," he said. "The quid pro quo would be settle it now--not force us to litigate for two, three, four years or whatever it is that they have in mind."
Evil Adrian: "Once again, prior art popping up. So, this whole thing will probably get turned on its head after about 3 more years of litigation.
Ispel: "A long time ago, when people were using Mosaic, the proprietor of Eolas invented the plugin technology. He showed this technology to Microsoft who poo-pooed it. Fast-forward several months and Microsoft's adds plugins in IE. Microsoft gets sued, litigation ensures while the browser wars and Y2K come and go. Whether or not you agree with software patents, there is no doubt Microsoft screwed this guy. I highly doubt the jury would have given Eolas the case if MS had not done this."
IOW: You screwed us and we're pissed so we want you to hand over a big fat wad of cash. But it'd be much easier for us if did it before the jury grows a brain and realises we didn't really invent this technology.
To know that you know what you know, and that you do not know what you do not know, that is true wisdom. --Scooby Doo
http://www.xcf.berkeley.edu/~wei/viola/violaHom
Read this link which was in the article,
e .h tml
the vilo web browser did what was specified in the
paptent before it was granted, but the judge decided
that preventing that evidence would have swayed the
jury so it was not allowed!?!?! WTF
http://www.xcf.berkeley.edu/~wei/viola/violaHom
...Eolas $699.00 for each copy of IE they run?
This patent madness must end!
Shall we all be terrified to invent anything unless we have a fleet of lawyers and ability to do massive patent searches?
Alright. I am curious how you would know that.
Googled?
It feels really good to have them attack. Only that the general community should be wary until we see if they're a wolf in wolf's clothing.
I forget the other company, but there's one posted to
Microsoft do deserve all the lawsuits they get.
And yes, every other piece of software has plugins, but it would be fantastic if they just levelled their guns at those that don't play nice with other kiddies. We know that this alone isn't going to to smeg all for the overall demise of MS, but the more fronts they have to fight on... well... the more fronts they have to fight on!
Let them spend money fighting OpenOffice/Linux for small business, let them fight linux/unix/J2EE (Oracle, Sun, IBM, BEA, yadda, yadda) for big business, let them fight Sony/Nintendo for gaming... they have a lot of clams in the bank, but it's one fight at a time.
The side of good needs a few more white knights...
"a company [...] has filed a motion to stop Microsoft from distributing its IE software until they remove Eolas' patented technology"
What??? EULAs are patented?! Thank god! Oh, wait a minute...
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
keep in mind that microcrash really does not create software, but buy up corps that do. look at connectix for example. The other thing to remember is IE was never a MS product to begin with, do any of us remember NCSA Mosaic?? remember what MS did there????? they paid NCSA for the right to sell it, and then gave it away for free, that way they didnt have to pay anyone an extra dime, and could push out netscape.....
I just looked it up, and it apparently is to be used for airplanes. The basic rundown is that if a passenger wants to use the bathroom, he/she has to press a button on their seat. This communicates with a computer on the plane, and this computer assigns them a place in a queue to use the most convienent bathroom. A display tells the passenger what place they are in and approximately how long they have to wait.
The point of the system seems to be to reduce the time people are standing up on the airplane, since you now wait in your seat. Plus it reduces waiting time (the computer will assign you to the closest bathroom with the shortest line), and streamlines the process of having to get up and go to the bathroom on a crowded plane.
There is a whole bunch of things that have to do with sensors to determine when the passenger has left their seat, etc. And things that the crew can do to control the system (as in shut off access during take-off/landing).
It also talks about other ideas, like the queues could be adjusted so that 1st class passengers get to bump in line over coach, etc. I don't really care much for that part of it.
Anyway, overall, this patent is not nearly as stupid as you make it out to be. It's not some frivilous patent that IBM came out with that people have been doing forever (I have never heard of a system like this anywhere in place).
If Eolas gets the injunction to stop IE distribution, that will include the AOL client... Maybe AOL would then regret snuggling up to Billy G. and helping to snuff Netscape. I do appreciate the funding they gave mozilla though.
Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see. - Mark Twain
This patent madness needs to stop. This software patent, along with many others including many filed by Microsoft, is invalid because of prior art.
The system is supposed to be setup to protect us from such frivolous patent games, however, it seems that the USPTO has no intention of performing the necessary exhaustive research to determine the validity of every software patent application, or perhaps ANY patent.
Given that the system is not properly used by those who are entrusted, I propose a non-profit organization that uses the existing rules to force this government organization to practice proper policy.
From:
Title 37 - Code of Federal Regulations Patents, Trademarks, and Copyrights
Section 1.501
" (a) At any time during the period of enforceability of a patent, any person may cite, to the Office in writing, prior art consisting of patents or printed publications which that person states to be pertinent and applicable to the patent and believes to have a bearing on the patentability of any claim of the patent. "
Section 1.510
" (a) Any person may, at any time during the period of enforceability of a patent, file a request for an ex parte reexamination by the Office of any claim of the patent on the basis of prior art patents or printed publications cited under 1.501. The request must be accompanied by the fee for requesting reexamination set in 1.20(c)(1). "
So based on these rules anyone can fight these lame patents, however, here is the kicker, if you want to file a patent the cost will start at between $385 and $770 (Section 1.16), however, if you want to force a reexamination the costs start at between $2,520 and $8,800 (Section 1.20).
This alone is going to dissuade regular people from using the system to fight these ridiculous patents. So this is why I suggest a non-profit organization that will need some type of support from the community.
Now get this:
Section 1.520
" The Director, at any time during the period of enforceability of a patent, may determine whether or not a substantial new question of patentability is raised by patents or printed publications which have been discovered by the Director or which have been brought to the Director's attention, even though no request for reexamination has been filed in accordance with 1.510 or 1.913. The Director may initiate ex parte reexamination without a request for reexamination pursuant to 1.510 or 1.913. Normally requests from outside the Office that the Director undertake reexamination on his own initiative will not be considered. Any determination to initiate exparte reexamination under this section will become a part of the official file of the patent and will be mailed to the patent owner at the address as provided for in 1.33(c). "
Now I'm thinking that the director may not have any incentive on his own to ensure proper examination is performed in the first place so the director is not likley to do a reexamination either.
So with proper lobbying higher up in the chain of command it may be possible to get someone to light a fire under the director so we could get some action on these lame patents without having to pay the reexamination fees. But we do need someone who's job it is to rattle some cages.
Assuming we cannot find anybody who is interested in taking up the cause to see these gross errors corrected this non-profit organization could begin filing reexamination requests.
Not only will this force the patent office to reconsider some of these patents, but a side affect would be to force the owners of the patents to spend some of their own time and capital to respond to the reexamination requests a defend their lame patents.
If we can get the purveyors of these bogus patents tied up in paying to backup their stupid claims then we could slow down the flow or pull back the tide.
burnin
Web developers face the possibility of having to significantly rewrite their pages or strip them of commonly used technologies like Macromedia's Flash.
Err... you'd better run that through W3C before telling everybody to do it. I mean, they are the ones who wrote the standard for HTML, and some petty patent detail doesn't affect what's valid HTML.
It would be hilarious if what happened was the patent issues were all over the classid attribute which only IE used, and they changed IE to work just like Mozilla. Of course, that will surely never happen.
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
Hmmm... Okay let's hear the usual outrages
againts software patents and licenses. Wow,
the silence is deafining.
We'll see. If Mono ever comes to be, I'll be shocked if we don't see some patent legal action...
OTOH, this may be the end of software patents. And good riddance. It would be one thing if these were giving out in a logical manner by intelligent people.
As it is...
Computer Science is Applied Philosophy
A) It once again show the absurd implications of software patents, things that should not be.
B) For once, it isn't brought by a Mega Corporation against an individual/small company without resources to defend itself.
C) Microsoft deserves shit like this and more.
Ceterum censeo Microsoftem esse delendam
A toy company called LeapFrog that makes talking books has filed a
tactical lawsuit against Mattel for patent infringement. LeapFrog is a growing company that has rapidly climbed to third place in the toy industry behind Mattel and Hasbro. They're asking for an injunction against their biggest competitor, just in time for the Xmas toy-shopping season. This is so transparent you could put it in a bottle and call it vodka.
IIRC, Microsoft has repeatedly tried to screw over this company through extra-legal means. It's one thing to ask for mercy after a fair fight, it's another thing to ask for mercy after trying to make the case "go away" by driving the plaintiff into bankruptcy (and snatching up the patents at the fire sale), etc.
As I recall, there was speculation that the plantiff was so pissed off that they might refuse to grant MS a license *at any cost.* Think about the anger required to turn your back on a billion dollars or so, to hurt the other guy as badly as he tried to hurt you.
In that context, of course the plantiff will demand that MS live with the consequences of the ruling *today*. Not in their "next release" (which may be years off), not even "tomorrow." Today. If that means that MS has to contact Dell and Compaq and HP and the rest and tell them that they have to cease all sales of Windows boxes because "MSIE is now fully integrated into the operating system," so be it. Microsoft made this bed by its own bad acts.
N.B., I'm not saying that I agree with this retaliatory attitude. But at the same time the problem with brutally suppressing your critics is that you force the one who finally beats you to be even meaner and nastier than you. Gates and Ballmer and the rest had to know this.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
How so? They used that software to destroy a company, it should be more then 521 mega-bucks.
Mod parent up. Someone who actually thinks about things before jumping into the fray. An extremely rare thing on /.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
Mike is a good guy, and he plays by the rules.
I thought M$ claimed IE as an integral part of the OS and that it could not be removed. Wouldn't M$ have to stop distributing Windows in order to stop distrubting IE?
were both protected by patents that have now expired. I think both are still in widespread use today.
The best diplomat I know is a fully activated phaser bank.
-- Scotty.
If you still don't grasp this concept, go watch the movie "Fargo." Then you will know enlightenment.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Alright. I am curious how you would know [about State Street Bank v. Signature Financial Group 149 F.3d 1368 (Fed.Cir.1998)].
Googled?
Perhaps IANAL, and YANAL, but HIAL (or SIAL, or HOSIAL)?
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
If you're paying out $1 billion every year for social security, you might want to look into increasing your number of exemptions just a tad.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Eolas keeps this up, wins injuction after injuction against Microsoft, leaves rest of browsers alone, I.E. has to be changed to the point of being too annoying to users, users start switching to alternate browsers, websites adopt standards, and everyone lives happily ever after. I hate patents as much as the next guy, but this is the situation we have, so let's hope for the best. Alternative better case scenario, same as above but users and representatives realize patents suck balls and do something about it (even more of a dream.
I think the judge should grant that Microsoft should go out of business and give all its assets to the free software community, or else pay a licensing fee to Eolas Technologies of one billion dollars per copy of Internet Explorer in distribution.
you're wishing for a multibillion dollar CORPORATION to fix problems w/ the GOVERNMENT?
i'm sorry but is that not like asking charles manson to help reform jeffery dahmer?
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s
This means one less platform for virus writers around the globe. They must be freaking out!
How to download Mozilla if IE is not shipped with MSIE anymore ?
100% of the virii I receive via email comes from Outlook Express users...
Apparently nobody pays attention or does any research.
First off Eolas has filed the same patent three times (been rejected) and has been narrowing it down.
Basically the patent states:
Any inlining function that renders on the client that gets information from another server. However javascript is not affected, but activex and other plugins are, but the question is the img tag linking to another webpage affected? I know a few places will not allow their sites to have img tags to point to a different server.
This is a stupid patent and should be thrown out. And in fact if we wanted to get into the nitty/gritty details Microsoft could sit there and attack StarOffice/OpenOffice with some of their patents and copyright information and get them out of business.
Your enemy's enemy is not necessarily your friend.
And what about that site (whose name escapes me this late at night) that so helpfully provides d/l's of old software versions?
Love it or loath it, IE isn't going away anytime soon.
But I'd still recommend: get a current download now with the latest SP in the event of temporary availability disruption.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
I'm a web developer. This is the last think I need. Microsoft has done some questionable things but this is not one of them.
The Eolas guy has tried to sound like he's a pro open software activist but all this is hurting is my industry. I'll probably have to say goodbye to Flash, Quicktime, Real, etc.
Welcome back, 1995!
Three years later MS lawyers will finish raping the dead corpse of Eolas the company. And you know what, I think if they go through their usual routine with Eolas, they'll deserve a standing ovation from Slashdot crowd, too.
After all I've never seen one single example of MS enforcing their patents on anyone, and it would be pretty dumb to think they don't have a nice big pile of them.
It's one thing when you file patents to prevent other people from suing you. It's totally another thing if you file them with the sole intention of suing someone 5 years later.
Is this unfair, well I suppose it could be seen that way, but MS have been trying to drive browser standards in their own direction.
Anyone want to buy a copy of UltraDev, Shockwave Flash, Fireworks, Dreamweaver bundle on sale going cheap? Also for sale are some RealMedia and Quicktime streaming media website design products. Highest offer over $1 gets the lot.
This is going to be better than the SCO circus before it's over. Hit squads and rampant hate PR are likely to fill the air ;)
PLUG-IN REQUIRED: This program requires a FLASH plug-in in order to display properly. These type programs are protected by software patents and cannot be loaded automatically by Internet Explorer. You will be alerted each time one of these plug-ins is needed so that you can allow or not allow it to be used. A YES will allow the program to proceed.
In order to automate the process, Microsoft provides a short program which allows you to automatically enter a YES whenever Internet Explorer asks for permission to load and use a FLASH plugin.
If you would like to have your computer automatically enter a YES whenever one of these FLASH type plugins are needed check the YES block below.
But there's little need for Active-X controls anyway, except to lock people into Microsoft. Microsoft can still ship a browser with Flash and Acrobat; they just can't force an update of it remotely.
The only real effect of this would be to discourage web designers from requiring the latest version of Flash, Acrobat, etc. For general web site use, you don't need the newer features of either. And for elaborate corporate intranets, the IT department probably wants to install whatever is needed directly, not via browser autoload.
You absolutley need to increase your excemtions, and tell the rest of us where we can get that kind of salary!!
More seriously, do you believe in the tooth fairy as well? Who cares where my social security goes, as far as I'm concerned that's a black hole with no emissions in the green spectrum in my lifetime, if you catch my drift. If you are relying on social security in your old age and are under fourty you better really love Ramen.
The scary thing is not how much money is being wasted n Iraq. The scary thing is that many other things the government and corperations are doing right now are wasting vastly more. At least that Iraq money however misguided might end up helping a few people who really need it. It's the responsible thing to do. If I spill something in someones house I ask where the paper towles are, not the door. It doesn't matter how smart or stupid our actions were before, we made a mess and now have to clean it up. It's just that simple.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
They used that strategy to kill a company that had no business case. Netscape was already giving away their software for free. Microsoft just gave it away for free in a slightly more convenient manner.
-a
Has anyone checked out the other patents that Eolas owns?
How long until the US legal system forces the users of other programs to suffer at the hands of this rapacious company?
If you do some reasearch in to Eolas, you'd find out that the patent in question was loaned to them by the University of California, the same people who own the copyright to BSD. If you go to their Q&A about the lawsuit, you can see all the details for yourself.
"In
Since IE is part of windows and they are wanting to stop distribution of IE, wouldn't that also mean a stop to the ditribution of Windows until the patch is out and all versions are fixed.
Hell, that could mean a stop to most of their software as IE is usually a requirement for it to run (and its soooo nice of them to include it on the CD for us).
http://www.xcf.berkeley.edu/~wei/viola/aboutEolasM icrosoft.html
In an Alanis Morisette sense, that is. It'd be odd but entertaining if Eolas ended up doing more to stop the distribution of IE with Windows OSes than the US govt ever did.
This is a must read, I haven't seen on Slashdot before.
The Viola webbrowser featured plug-ins in 1993. The Eolas patens was filed in November 1994.
Two facts:
This stinks. Eolas will probably lose in the next round.
Read it all here:
Me
I have two views on this matter which might seem radical, extreme or downright stupid, but bear with me:
1. Getting rid of plugins would be a Good Thing
2. Forcing Microsoft to suspend shipments of Windows would be a Good Thing
Point 1: Getting rid of plugins would be a Good Thing
I have never seen a web site that used plugins that I have not thought would have been better without them.
Plugins do not increase usability or functionality. They reduce it. Take a look at a plugged-in, embedded media player. Can you resize it? Can you move it aside and continue browsing on another page? Can you access the menus? No. So what are the benefits? None that I can see.
The same applies to other embedded applications. I am not saying that Flash/Java/etc should all be scrapped - but where there is a need for them, they should be run as an external application, where then can be controlled and where they are incapable of crashing your browser.
Another good example is the Acrobat plugin. I can't count the number of times I have been reading a PDF, forgotten that it is embedded in my browser, and then closed the window, losing my browser history and the URL where I found the document.
One of the more common uses for Java in web pages is for "tickers". I have often thought that if the content of a ticker is worth reading, it should simply be written on the page, where I can read it at my own pace, rather than be forced to read it at the scroll speed determined by the applet author.
If web authors could not embed plugins in their pages, the result would be a web which is easier to search, faster to browse, and more likely to be usable by the disabled or those with simpler user agents such as lynx.
[Note that I do not support Eolas's methods (software patents) but I do support their goal of destroying plugins.]
Point 2: Forcing Microsoft to suspend shipments of Windows would be a Good Thing
I agree that this would hurt the global economy in the short term, but I do not believe it would hurt as much as many think.
Existing Windows systems will all continue to work. Companies will take the risk of installing unlicensed copies of Windows temporarily to get around short term issues.
It will actually force purchasers to consider their options and buy a system after conducting research into prices and functionality instead of just buying the same old Windows boxes. This can only be a good thing for competition (when Microsoft resume shipments, many people may have already seen the benefits of the alternatives).
Companies like Dell will probably go bankrupt. Yes, this will hurt some people, but will benefit the computer industry in the long term by teaching the valuable lesson that allowing your business to be entirely reliant on the output of a single monopolistic supplier is a Bad Thing.
Flame away....
Who else is waiting for all those reports and recommendations to be released by Gartner and the like advising corporations to hold off on further usage of IE? Isn't this exactly like the SCO situation? Perhaps even worse since nothing has been proven in court about SCO IP being in the Linux kernel.
The system is supposed to be setup to protect us from such frivolous patent games, however, it seems that the USPTO has no intention of performing the necessary exhaustive research to determine the validity of every software patent application, or perhaps ANY patent.
Given that the system is not properly used by those who are entrusted, I propose a non-profit organization that uses the existing rules to force this government organization to practice proper policy.
As much as I'm inclined to applaud your sentiment, you're really talking about federating the sum of human knowledge, and based on that collection, predicting what is obvious. This is hard. Mistakes absolutely will be made, as they are in all things, particularly where humans are at work, especially if the task is difficult.
The question is just, "How could they get this so wrong?" It's, "How can they get these things right, without getting other things wrong?"
The challenge so flippantly set forth by some would absolutely make Sisyphus yearn for his boulder.
Don't you think that if they were planning on going after the little guys, they would have started there.
It would probably make going after MS a lot easier in the process.
If this goes through, the immediate losers will be Microsoft, Apple and Macromedia. The former because of the impossible act of having to send new versions of IE to everyone on the planet (especially to all the OEMs), Macromedia because Flash would take a huge hit in poularity and Apple because Quicktime would suffer from the lack of web exposure.
Microsoft's response might be to offer "selected partners" the ability to get their particular piece of tech included in the browser as part of the new code, and to offer specialised proprietry tags for the content, such as the IMG tag right now. You don't have to be a genius to see who will not be selected to be "selected partners". Apple would lose out to MS multimedia tags and Real could close shop.
A standards based workaround could be an implementation of special tags in XHTML that reference whatever "standards based" tech the browser offers.
Microsoft can go to hell, for all I care, but this Eolas guy's suit is more likely to damage MS' competitors that MS in the long run.
What next, what will be the next thing to get patented? Should idea's like plugin's not be intellectual property in the public domain.
.com bubble burst, affecting every facet of IT and hempering it's growth. I would urge those individuals who have applied for 'loony' patents on 'intellectual' property to make their patents Public Domain to support the growth of the Open Source movement and the further development of all mankind.
With the advent of the EU Software Patents Bill any intellectual property in the software sector can be patented will stunt and totally demoralise all any any but the most hardened programmers. Any programs or apps they write will need the legal go ahead before launch. Legal software specialists will have to inspect every bit of code and features implemented to justify their uniqueness and or pay the dividends to the respective company's.
What's to stop a company from patenting the ';' in programming. This will mean just about every program ever written will have to pay divends to whoever recieves the patent.
What absolute madness. With all the legal rambling, patents,bickering and finger pointing that is happening lately it is easy to see how the
Open source and development of the human race as a whole directed by a single entity would be a very noble and challenging task requiring a governing greater than the human spirit. This would seem alot like a communist society although communism would fail for the very reason that it destroys all freedom of speech and uniqueness that we all cherish.
Where to from here?
On the MSDN pages, MS has a 'prerelease' version of IE6 SP1b, which contains the changes required by the Eolas lawsuit.
You can download a stand-alone version of IE (not a full replacement) so you can see differences between existing code and what it will be like.
Basically, its welcome to popup hell by default, but you can (this is good) block them all - pages with 'active content' will appear in a little symbol in the status bar (like the padlock). Click it to get the content.
This doesn't apply to content that doens't load data from elsewhere (boo hiss, adverts generally), or controls created dynamically from script loaded from a remote location.
The link is here
What next, what will be the next thing to get patented? Should idea's like plugin's not be intellectual property in the public domain.
.com bubble burst, affecting every facet of IT and hempering it's growth. I would urge those individuals who have applied for 'loony' patents on 'intellectual' property to make their patents Public Domain to support the growth of the Open Source movement and the further development of all mankind.
With the advent of the EU Software Patents Bill any intellectual property in the software sector can be patented will stunt and totally demoralise all any any but the most hardened programmers. Any programs or apps they write will need the legal go ahead before launch. Legal software specialists will have to inspect every bit of code and features implemented to justify their uniqueness and or pay the dividends to the respective company's.
What's to stop a company from patenting the ';' in programming. This will mean just about every program ever written will have to pay divends to whoever recieves the patent.
What absolute madness. With all the legal rambling, patents,bickering and finger pointing that is happening lately it is easy to see how the
Open source and development of the human race as a whole directed by a single entity would be a very noble and challenging task requiring a governing greater than the human spirit. This would seem alot like a communist society although communism would fail for the very reason that it destroys all freedom of speech and uniqueness that we all cherish.
Where to from here?
It's faster because most of it is part of the basic building blocks of windows. How many components use MSHTML as their rendering engine? You don't even have to start IE.
Firebird has to load it's own rendering engine, plus the browser gui, etc.
I realize this doesn't make much difference to reality, but you can't really blame the firebird developers because they use a rendering enine that isn't integrated into the windows codebase.
He tried to kill me with a forklift!
This is just so obviously a way for Eolas to get income off their patent. They are just trying to get Microsoft to buy a license rather than remove their infringing Eolas technology. Microsoft have made it clear that they are removing the technology, Eolas weren't expecting this and thought Microsoft would pay up, so now Eolas are trying every trick in their bag to get Microsoft to buy the license. The spirit of the law should stop this one. Any sane judge would see through it and let Microsoft remove the technology as they are doing!
Seriously, guy. How much to you get paid to astroturf on Slashdot? The nature of your posts suggests you work for or contract to the great innovator.
M$ is one of the few entities with the financial resources to take on the patent office, at least in a low key way. It would be a great way for them to get some positive publicity in the non-M$ IT community.
--
It's wrong that an intellectual property creator should not be rewarded for their work.
It's equally wrong that an intellectual property creator should be rewarded too many times for the one piece of work, for exactly the same reasons.
..then we can sue them under bioterrorism laws..
"You lied to me! There is a Swansea!"
Perhaps it is true that Eolas is not going to pursue this software patent nonsense against anyone but Microsoft.
The reasoning? I think any judge could see that this behavior against any or all of the other browsers would effective shut out the web for everybody, not just Microsoft. That just would then just tell Eolas to can it (and Eolas knows that). Of course, if it's well within their legal rights to shut down every other browser...
Nevermind.
Join Tor today!
Basically, Microsoft is letting this happen, because it means that the world's most popular and well-deployed browser, with 90+% of the market share, is suddenly not just not supporting plug-ins, but specifically not supporting plug-ins for Flash and Java.
/. to report on.
This means that Flash and Java are no longer ubiquitous ways to distribute web applications and advertisements. It also kills any momentum that SVG might be building up, and reduces the use of PDF files as a means of distribution. Microsoft couldn't be happier about such an announcement.
It buys Microsoft time, by being the "good guys" legally and gaining good press, to actually write their own dynamic-web-animation system, all built in their own proprietary VB or JScript API, eliminating the need for Flash and SVG and all that entirely. And of course opening up a tremendous amount of new security holes for
They want this to happen. They want the web world to not be dependent on Java and Flash and all that stuff. And now this patent suit is giving them what they want and still making them smell like a rose when they do it...
"But remember, most lynch mobs aren't this nice." (H.Simpson)
-- Joe
Remember that Media Player upgrade a while back whose license agreement gave Microsoft the right to install software on your machine without your permission? I imagine that clause was included in the WinXP license from the beginning.
That means they have every right to install and run an application that removes IE, or, at least, the browser functionality.
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
Except, IE 4 has more bugs than any other piece of ms sofware. it actually does go faster than ns4 on fast connections, but with at least twice the page problems. And, if you've ever written Javascript, you'd know that m$ didn't get it right until 5. (Ie 4 works on a lot, about as much as ns3.)
Netscape 4 was actually a pretty good program when it first came out. Unfortunatly, netscape failed to fix almost all of the bugs, and judging on Mozilla.org's findings, the NS 4 source was so messed up, it would have been a pain to fix.
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14
Joe Uninformed would be making all the decisions, "ballot fatigue" would be a household phrase, and he with the most advertising, wins.
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
Many who were around when the Web was born will remember how it used to be when Webpages had content, not Flas-Animations and blinking banners.
To all those who think the end of plugins is nigh and that the web will die I can only say this:
1) There will still be plugins
2) If plugins were to disappear, the web would be a lot faster *and* safer. Substance might win over style again. Content would become distingushable from design once mor.
I'd love it - and believe me, many of you out there would learn to love it, too. But alas - it will not happen. We'll conmtinue to brouws through blinking webpages only to realase after half a minute of broadband-download for the stylish look and feel, that there's nothing behind the pompous facade.
Things could be different.
...what we'll think of these patents 40 years from now.
... de facto standards.)
Will software patents force developers to come up with novel solutions, instead of being able to rely on de-facto standards?
I suspect that's how these patents occur...If something isn't a named, documented standard, the USPTO doesn't know how to find it as prior art. If something is a de-facto standard, then it probably isn't named and documented.
(I say 'probably isn't' because of the millions of things you and I take for granted
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
You mean Internet Exploder might be stopped for a while??? ACK! How could I check slashdot or read e-mail without it????
DUKEY!
I'd be willing to make a considerable wager that Slashdotters would be singing a very different tune.
Eolas went exclusively after Microsoft because they have the deepest pockets, and believe you me, if the other browser makers had dough, they'd have been strung up right next to Microsoft. Eolas is the enemy here, not Microsoft.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
Oh great, now Microsoft is going to have to provide an unhyperlinked url to a torrent hosted off of Supernova. Since 99.9% of just about everyone will have absolutely no clue how to use it, Microsoft will provide a complimentary piece of software called MSTorrent which will feature either a paperclip or a guy named Bob explaining how to use this thing.
Eolas is a patent privateer.
See http://www.eolas.com
in order to find out more about their "technology"... It's time to organize a strong movement against trivial software patents.
I don't know the answer to that, but it would seem to me that, if IE were the only browser targeted for patent enforcement, then Microsoft could claim that they are being unfairly singled out.
It seems to me that the computer software industry is bringing out a fundamental flaw in the patent process....
A goal is a dream with a deadline
This is complete bull shit. What a fucking load of crap.
What a sad company. They thought for sure they were gonna make it rich. So when microsoft decides to code a workaround they are all like "oh you don't have to do that, pay us the half billion, its why we went to court anyways" I for one hope that prior art is proven. And hopefully microsoft smartens up, as much as they like to patent stuff that has already been done.
Nice to see someone giving Microsoft a taste of their own medicine!
It seems there are many silly cases of companies getting patents when they shouldn't however here's one instance where the system worked: KlapskatesThe idea is, for speed skates, to allow the ankle to move (extend), which results in about 1/100 second increase in speed per stride. When a skating company (Viking) was thinking of building the skate, (even though Scheurs and Meester had already been awarded a Dutch patent) they did some research and found that there had been 5 previous applications for a patent, dating back to 1894!
Therefore they did *not* get a European patent, and other companies could compete to build the best skate using the same idea.
This is really a non event.
Eolas asks for permanent injunction after winning initial court round (happens all the time).
MS files for appeal (happens all the time).
Judge stays permanent injunction pending appeals court ruling (happens all the time).
I, for one, welcome our new Eolas overlords
No, I haven't RTFA, so I'm hoping someone knowledgeable can tell me how Eolas patented plug-in technology is vastly different from related technologies such as dynamically-loaded libraries or kernel loadable modules?
Is it just because it's hooked up to a Web browser front end or the action occurs because of an HTML tag rather than a directive compiled into a C program?
"Provided by the management for your protection."
Eolas would be doing us all a favor if they patent-suited the browser world into not using plugins.
I haven't seen one yet that I couln't live without, especially GIF and JPEG inline picture display (is that a plugin?).
Imagine a world of 12k web pages (each only using one socket connection) and you will get my drift.
L8,
AC
This is retarded. Why would MS charge for IE above the normal price of Windows?!? There's no retail version at all!!
In 1993, I wrote a plug in for a remote client that specifically accesses data from a remote client. It meets all of teh conditions of the Eolas patent, as I understand the patent details. I am not sure how or why Microsoft lost, but it seems this patent has little merit.
Mike www.sharecube.com
You talk about being "owed". Just because someone took that money from you, why do they "owe" you anything? Especially since the method of taking money is a process, which just is - it owes no-one anything. It simpy takes money.
I talk about writing off that money because I don't think I need it. And unless there are a lot more people like me that are happy to say "You know that money they took out your whole life? Well, it's just gone" the system is doomed to collapse. A combination of historical shortsightedness by politicians and statistical examination of the populace can tell you that. So, I don't think of it as a loss so much as a gift to people that actually need it. In that sense I suppsoe all the money flowing out of SS is annoying, but again I can't even be annoyed by that because it's not really coming "from" SS, just from this giant slush fund we call the government. And the fact that possibly even some of it might go to help others that really need it, even if they are not Americans, I can live with that.
Sure the money is pork barrel for someone. But here's where the realism comes in - no matter who gets the contracts it's pork barrel. So just accept that and move on to the helping people part. We could dither forever but get the people some help first please. I don't care if some people are getting illictially rich from it. I am bothered like all good programmers by the apparent extreme inefficency of the process for converting money to help, but people are just like that, and I'm not willing to go over there to hand out money in person because I am too settled in to my life here.
I am comfortable with all this because I am an optimist that basically believes in Karma at heart, that people making money in slimy ways eventually have to pay for it, one way or another. So you see, nihilism is not in my makeup.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
If something has been adjudicated as being in violation of a patent then the distribution has to stop too. Now it is up to the patent holder to track down and prosecute the individual distributors so that makes it relatively impossible.
Your scenario of MS releasing the code is something completely different. In that case a judge could very easily assign a high dollar amount to the "damages" done to the patent holder by such an action. Additionally, since this would be after they lost a court decision there would probably be additional contempt of court and/or criminal negligence charges too.
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
Eolas now has a PROVEN, QUARANTEED profit generator, they will HAVE to run it against all comers - or face shareholder lawsuits.
Eolas is privately owned. No shareholders.
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
Stuff gets "leaked" all the time. From washington, from corporations - it's a "hole" in the fabric and although not always accidental, it can rarely be proven. How can MS be sued for the actions of an unidentified individual acting against the corporation's policy?
It can't. that's why it's called a "leak."
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
ROFLMAO!
Like Micro$oft would ever actually cease and/or pay up!
Just imagine!
Thanks for the laugh guys.
Goodbye Eolas Tech, it was nice having you around for a little while. And thanks for the laugh. That was so funny, maybe if Gates was amused he'll use some lube.
. Quit playing Monopoly with Bill. Switch to one of many non-Microsoft products today.
The fact is that in this case MS would be "leaking" someone else's property. (Look at the current Washington witch hunt going on over a "leak".) Now there would probably be some burden for the prosecuting company to prove either willfullness or negligence but it would be very hard for a company to play "Oops it just got out" AFTER a judgement.
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.