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W3C Requests Eolas Patent Re-Examination
x0n writes "Verbatim from W3: Acting on the advice of the W3C HTML Patent Advisory Group, W3C has presented the United States Patent and Trademark Office with prior art establishing that US Patent No. 5,838,906 (the '906 patent) is invalid. W3C Director Tim Berners-Lee has written an unprecedented request to U.S. Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property James E. Rogan to take action to remove the patent to allow operation of the Web. Read the briefing." techsoldaten adds a link to this New York Times story on the move, and
bgalbs points out the W3C's detailed filing describing prior art provided to the USPTO Director's office, "along with a letter from Tim Berners-Lee asking that the so-called Eolas patent be revoked," writing "Here's hoping it does some good; between this and the Lotus Notes prior art, perhaps there's hope this will all go away."
There should be no need for prior art. The very idea that you can patent the idea of putting something that used to appear in a new window embedded in the original window instead is just absurd beyond belief. A wonderful example of what nonsense the entire idea of 'intellectual property' is.
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
> 2 stories ago, we wished Microsoft would be punished for firing a blogger, no we wish they'd stop being sued by Eolas...
Insightful? Another fine example of slashdot moderating...
The patent has implications for ALL browsers. If Eolas thought they could extract money from the Mozilla foundation, you can be sure their lawyers would advising them to take such action.
>Eolas have no problems with open source and W3C compliant commercial browsers.
For now... What happens when a few years down the road, the guy running Eolas decides he wants a new jet or yacht? Maybe he just wants to see how much he can get his net worth up to. Who knows what he's planning or thinking.
He's already shown his stance on IP patents, I have no doubts that suing other browser companies is not that far off, regardless of what he says.
The linux hacker
For example, the mozilla foundation in its official statement on the issue says nothing to condemn the Eolas patent, but instead has some content free statements like "The Eolas matter highlights the degree to which web browser software is critical to the user experience of the web.". I don't think this is the right thing to do. Getting all up in arms about say the gif patent and pretending you didn't notice when MS is hit is not good. So let us speak with one voice, and show our support for W3C.
What would happen if the patent did get revoked? Would MS get their money back?
What, you think that MS just wrote out a check for half a billion dollars as they walked out of the court room?
The ruling has been appealed. If the patent was revoked then the appellate court would simply reverse the ruling on the basis of the patent being invalid and MS wouldn't have to cough up a nickel (except to their lawyers).
While the patent in question is questionable at best, how is Eolas evil? They filed for and were given a patent. They have now successfully defended that patent against an infringer.
The fact that said infringer is huge and has decided to unilaterally shaft the Web in order to avoid paying licensing fees has nothing to do with the inherent goodness or evilness of Eolas.
BTW, Eolas is privately owned with only one employee. MS can't buy it unless Eolas agrees to being bought. Also, if MS were to buy Eolas you think they'd just suddenly go and license that patent to everyone out of the goodness of their heart?
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
Microsoft bad.
Software patents bad.
Poetic Justice?!?
Remember, it could just as easily have been the Mozilla or Konquerer developers being sued, (legally speaking), in which case the folks in this forum would be all up in arms about it and supporting the W3C.
- "History shows again and again how nature points out the folly of men" -- Blue Oyster Cult, 'Godzilla'
The patent office cost the companies of this country an enormous amount of money that they had to spend on researching this problem. The patent office was responsible for maintaining the validity of the Patent information. The Patent Office should have to pay the companies that endured an unecessary loss to their business as a result of the poor work done by the Patent Office when it originally issued the Patent.
If the Patent Office had to Pay For Their Mistakes, they might be less likely to make the same mistakes over and over again.
Nonsense. 'Intellectual property' is a very, very recent invention. It was a radical new idea in the 1700s, ignored by most nations, including many of the more prosperous ones, and where it did exist it had a much milder form than today. What we call 'IP' today really hasn't existed until just a few years ago. I suppose we were all cave dwellers before that? Bull.
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
Really? I think the term "intellectual property" was not even coined until looong after humans left the caves. Unless you mean, not the term itself but the concept of "intellectual property"? On that too I would dispute you; even in modern law there is no such overall concept, and in my experience (I am a postdoctorial research fellow in theoretical physics) the whole notion of "intellectual property" is anti-intellectual and only slows down progress.
I hate to say it but you can't have both worlds. The precedent that is being set by acknowledging the Eolas patent as a valid one can detrimental to the www community. Sometimes we have to side with our enemies to do what is right.
Here's something to think about. If you desire to limit or prohibit speech from a racist/Nazi/radical group, are you willing to give up the same fundamental freedom as they are?
You're assuming that technological progress would have stopped at that point, all over the world, just because the handful of countries that introduced relatively mild copyright and patent laws at this time did otherwise? That's a huge an unwarranted assumption, and/or a a circular argument.
If anything, the bulk affect of these laws is to stifle progress, not to help it. Particularly with the current 'modern' implementations of these ideas.
No, you need to back up and figure out where you got lost. The notion that human inventiveness would suddenly cease if people couldn't lay legal claim to ideas is absolutely absurd.
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
Good point. Microsoft has lied, stolen, and committed fraud to the detriment of entire industries, but they've never used patents proactively. So let's go ahead and give them the bomb, they're clearly trustworthy.
Naw, it is not a 'Microsoft' thing, it is a 'right vs wrong' thing.
Microsoft is wrong to use its monopoly position in desktop OSs to further its market share in other areas.
Microsoft is wrong to fire someone for posting an innocent picture on an obscure weblog.
Eolas is wrong to try to enforce an invalid patent.
In soviet Russia, Natalie Portman is wrong to have a Beowulf cluster of grits for profit!
SCO is wrong to keep smoking that stuff and not sharing...
Acts of massive stupidity are almost never covered by warranty. --me.
I don't know, why don't you ask the author of Virtualdub?
If the Patent Office had to Pay For Their Mistakes, they might be less likely to make the same mistakes over and over again.
That presumes the Patent Office would feel a greater sense of accountability for your money than they do for their work. Since they obviously don't give half a damn about their work, why would they care about how they spend your money?
What is the benefit of keeping the patent system versus the benefit of getting rid of it? Maybe we need to wipe our hands clean of the whole concept of patenting.
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
...trumps MS bashing anytime, and that is a sport I enjoy myself.
Sure, MS is generally evil, and generally worthy of being ragged on, but only for the things they do that are wrong. What is at issue here is something important to the community as a whole --- it's about having one of the basic ideas that makes the modern Web work being hijacked by yet another bogus patent. It's not about MS.
MS should be burned for what wrong they do, but we shouldn't allow our dislike of them to cause us to ignore a threat to us all.
So instead of the nattering about "who should I hate today," get behind the challenge to this --- and all the other --- idiotic, baseless IP patents.
Have a nice war,
Mal te Elder
So when the patent office fucks up you have to bribe them to do their job correctly? Do they at least refund this "fee" if you were correct? Is anyone penalized at all for seeking or granting the invalid patent?