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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?
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.
I don't know which side to be with, the evil Eolas, or the equally evil Microsoft... HELP!! :)
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
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.
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?
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.
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.
Actually this has to do with how plugins are used in the browser and could very well have Mozilla fall within the scope of their patent.
Let's not start singing Eolas' praises until we see whether they are friend or foe, they could just as easily attempt to extort $$$ from Mozilla or Netscape(AOL). This is probably the first lawsuit I had wished Microsoft came out on top.
Can I get an eye poke?
Dog House Forum
they would have to stop distributing Windows?
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...
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.
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.
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!
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.
"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 ----
AC comments get piped to
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 (=
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
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.
Mozilla's answer to this patent is that it only mentions interprocess communication. Mozilla loads the plugin into the same memory space as the browser, as I understand it, so they believe they are outside the scope of the patent. Anyways, to answer your question, this issue has already been brought before the Mozilla developers and they've already addressed it for the time being.
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
I realize that their technology is old and outdated. But the point is that they can run the MS browser with no problems. How is Firebird better in this instance? IMHO, it isn't. Just because it's open doesn't mean it's always better.
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
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
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.
Yeah, an AOL client with no browser sounds like a real winner. If IE shipments are stopped, then the AOL client would have to stop shipping until they could remove the "offending" version of IE. If you install the newest AOL client, it will install the version of each IE .dll that it needs. That means they ship IE with their client. How they embed that browser function and expose it to the user dosen't mean much unless that too infringes the Eolas patent.
The AOL client will play flash content even if a seperate flash plug-in hasn't been installed. Seems like it has to have the same infringing problems as the standalone IE.
Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see. - Mark Twain
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.
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.
"New Patent Laws, By Microsoft."
Somehow this doesn't make me feel any better.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
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
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
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!
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)
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.