Eolas vs. Microsoft Verdict Stands, Despite ReExam

theodp writes "A federal judge on Wednesday upheld a jury's $521 million verdict against Microsoft in the high-profile Web browser patent infringement lawsuit, denying Microsoft's motion to suspend a decision until the USPTO completes a reexamination of the patent. Eolas was also awarded prejudgment interest of $45 million. An injunction against future sales of IE that contain technology based on Eolas' patent was also granted, but put on hold pending an appeal."

Comments

Does this mean ...

[craigmarshall]

An injunction against future sales of IE that contain technology based on Eolas' patent was also granted, but put on hold pending an appeal.

Does this mean that distribution of IE (with ActiveX enabled) may be made illegal? Doesn't Windows Update, Flash, Java , Director, etc. need ActiveX to work?

If this is the case, what if this patent-holding company decides to do the same to Mozilla, Konqueror, etc.? Are we screwed?

Craig

Re:Does this mean ...

[chris_mahan]

Facetious Flash:

Eolas Sues Mozilla and get source code for free.

In other news, the main sourceforge server and othe open source communities are moved to India, slightly out of reach of the US Courts.

On a more serious note:
If this happens, we can all go back to the good old days of well-formed html with linked media resources.

Re:Does this mean ...

[zombieflesheater]

The title of the patent in question (is: "Distributed hypermedia method for automatically invoking external application providing interaction and display of embedded objects within a hypermedia document".

Microsoft are proposing to change IE's behaviour to work around the patent. The new IE will prompt users before loading external embedded objects. This manual invocation circumvents the "automatic" specification in the patent, and thus IE no longer infringes.

The fact that this change will irritate the bejezus out of users has not gone unnoticed. A further clever exploitation of the patent wording is suggested to get around this. From the above link:

"You can prevent Internet Explorer from prompting the user by using Dynamic HTML (DHTML) to load ActiveX controls from script. " ... "The control is blocked if the script that creates the control is in the same file as the HTML for the Web page. For the control to load without user input, the script must be defined in a function defined outside of the HTML file."

There's more detail, but I think the crux of it is that in order to not infringe, IE must avoid automatically loading external applications. A separate script file on the local server is not "external", so IE is compliant.

The good news is that if Eolas turn their patent spotlight onto the browser projects you mention, the browsers won't have to change much, just like IE hasn't. The bad news is that the onus of work will shift onto site authors. Anyone maintaining a site using embedded objects will have to either re-code or suffer a changed "user experience".

Here's hoping the patent will be proved invalid.

Re:Does this mean ...

[rcpitt]

It sounds to me like EOLAS has finally done what the DOJ and all the security experts in the world have wanted to do for years - remove IE from its tight integration into the OS and stop IE and all of the various things it is included into from executing insecure code without any user interaction. I expect my customer support load will go down :)

on a more serious note...

[BlackIce_101]

isn't it funny how microsoft is constantly in court, regularly the loser, and yet never seems to run out of ways to appeal, postpone, invalidate, and generally weasel out of every possible negative consequence to it's actions? Or maybe infuriating would be a better choice of words...

Re:on a more serious note...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's called "due process" and if you don't grant Microsoft that right, then who will grant it to you when you are in need of it?

"Sales"

[DrSkwid]

Where can I buy this 'internet explorer'?

Does it run on plan 9?

It will be interesting to see if they separate IE from Windows in a way they said was impossible!

This is extremely good news for us

[0x0d0a]

This is almost ideal news for the typical Slashdotter.

First, the existing patent system is widely complained about. This patent probably shouldn't have been granted in the first place. However, if Microsoft had won this case, all that would have happened is that this particular patent would have been invalidated. Now, a major tech company just took a half million dollar loss because the PTO is using silly rules. The tech industry now has serious reasons to argue for modification of tech patents. Microsoft's patent portfolio is doubtlessly valuable in terms of preventing newcomers from entering the market, but there's a significant question as to whether it's worth half a billion dollars (plus all the other copycats that are likely to run out and start suing large companies).

Second, someone had to take a nasty hit to get business folks upset about the state of things. And who would we rather have take the financial hit than Microsoft?

Best patent news I've heard in a long time.

I hope Eolas leaves Mozilla alone (well, AOL).

Re:This is extremely good news for us

[AllUsernamesAreGone]

The problem is that, this sort of hiccup aside, the patent situation is exactly what the big players in the tech industry want. Yes, that's .5 billion Microsoft is now out of pocket, but the potential loss could be even more immense if patent laws were changed to be more accurate - microsoft patents are not just used to prevent newcomers, they are used in cross licening schemes and as a revenue source. If a substantial number of them were cancelled it could result in microsoft having to pay future and possible back licenses. And it wouldn't just be microsoft, a large number of big companies would suddenly find fairly significant holes where patents sit now.

I'd actually like that to happen (I'm vicious that way) but the tech industry is one big Old Boys network, it isn't going to push for reform.

Re:Bad for IE users

[Johnny Mnemonic]

Now instead of working seamlessly, there will be a pop-up dialog to prompt the user to activate the desired control.

Or, stop using ActiveX. Use javascript instead; added benefit: Linux and Mac users can now use your site.

Re:Bad for IE users

[the quick brown fox]

I think designers will be most affected by this in relation to Flash. There's plenty you can do in Flash that would be inconvenient or impossible to do in js/DHTML. And Linux and Mac users can use Flash.

This sucks.

Oh dear

[Curtman]

This patent is a carte blanche for Eolas to sue pretty much anyone they choose. I don't see how Mozilla's plugins, and extensions are any different from what they are suing Microsoft over.

Someone please correct me, I sure hope I'm wrong.

It causes me great pain to be on the side of Microsoft in this issue. Damn you Eolas.

Eolas In Patent Talks With Linux Community

[theodp]

Eolas is talking with members of the Linux and open-source community about the use of its Web browser patent, which is at the heart of its high-profile infringement case against Microsoft, the company's founder said on Wednesday. "We're in discussions with major players in Linux world and working on plan to resolve '906 patent issue with entire Linux community," Eolas Founder Michael Doyle told eWEEK.com, referring in short hand to the full patent's number. "The solution will be supportive of open-source community." Full story.

Re:Eolas In Patent Talks With Linux Community

[the_womble]

They have every reason to allow co-operate with open source deveopers. They can not make money from open source, so if they enforce the patent the result will be that developers will work around it, and the last thing they want is the emergence of alternative.