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Microsoft Holds Off on Eolas Patent Changes
Walkiry writes "As reported by Reuters, Microsoft believes the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office might come to the rescue and cancel the patent that was going to force them into changing the behaviour of Internet Explorer. Maybe the Patent Office is finally getting a clue? Or is it Microsoft's long arm? Time will tell..."
i am not trying to be a troll, but isn't it pretty naive to think that there might be finally showing up brain cells in the patent office?
we hear stupid patents getting approved every other day, and now they play the ball into microsofts hands...
it's just another issue of economics forcing a governmental body to it's will... the patent system, already killing the small business in favour of the big 0wner, will widen the gap even more.
I am excited to hear this news out of pure self-interest.
The sites I maintain do a lot of video streaming, and I have been having a heck of a time getting everything working optimally with the Javascript workarounds Apple, Macromedia, and others are promoting as the best way to deal with this potential change to IE.
I've been dragging my feet on getting it all figured out. As is typical in the industry these days (or so it seems from what I've read and am myself experiencing), I'm a one-man web shop in my company's IT department, overworked, underpaid, project managing, testing, developing, and it all has to be done right NOW!
All I can say is, if I don't have to mess with this IE workaround stuff for ActiveX, it'd be all right by me.
Not to mention that this is potentially a big win for the Internet as a whole. If one of these idiotic methdology/software patents can suffer a big blow like this, there's hope that they all can!
Is everyone on /. so brainwashed by the anti-patent groupthink here that you can't recognize the real message in this announcement? What this announcement tells us is that Microsoft has been either forced by their customers to keep the infringing technology in Windows or they've concluded that their proposed IE patch actually doesn't avoid infringement. Microsoft's statements concerning the "legal status" are merely spin to redirect attention away from their failure and towards a questionable action by the (recently-resigned) Patent Commissioner.
The circumstances surrounding the Patent Office's reexam are quite fishy. Commissioner Rogan granted the reexam the day after it was requested by Sir Tim. The judge in the case comments on this in his recent ruling:
"One possible reason to believe that the reexamination would not take long is that, according to the Deputy Commissioner for Patent Examination policy, the reexamination was triggered by a ?substantial outcry? from the Internet community. The most prominent among the creators of the Web, Sir Timothy Berners- Lee, expressed the view that the PTO had missed clear prior art. Judging from the record before me, it is safe to say that some of the outcry arises from the view of a significant portion of Web experts, including Berners-Lee, that royalties ought not to be paid patented Web innovations. This contingent believes instead that Web invention is for the good of humanity and not the inventor. If this is the true reason for the reexamination, then I doubt the reexamination will take very long."
When the judge refers to "the record before me" he is talking about the facts that the two references that Berners Lee cited to the PTO were both exhibits at the trial and that Dave Raggett, the author of those two references, actually testified at the trial. Raggett's testimony showed that he hadn't even considered "interactive processing" in what he proposed in 1993. For this and other technical insufficiencies, Microsoft chose to drop the Raggett references from the case. The fact that those two references are the best that Berners Lee could come up with doesn't bode well for Microsoft's chances.
The other often-cited "prior art" is the Viola software which Pei Wei claimed anticipated the Eolas invention. The fact is that Wei was asked to demonstrate that software during the trial, and in the process was confronted with the fact that it never actually worked the way he's always claimed it did. Microsoft got caught tring to rig the demo so as to hide this fact. This article gives a colorful description of Wei's failed attempt being exposed on the witness stand.
It's funny how these facts never seem to make it into the Microsoft-controlled press.
Your obviously not familar with the Eolas case.
/.ing at home), but Eolas has no intention of going after anyone BUT Microsoft.
Microsoft knew full well that they were going to be sued regarding this patent.
The professor (the sole employee of Eolas) in this situation was working with Microsoft to develop a 'plugin' archietecture for IE. Part of this work became ActiveX.
The man in question was unable to negotiate a deal with Microsoft. They felt that his demands were too large.
So they blew him off, like many other companies that they have cooperated with in the past.
Unfortunately for them, he had been awarded a patent for his research.
Now he has a bone to pick with Microsoft. I'm not sure where I filed the link (I'm at work, and I do most of my
And Eolas has no intention of licensing the patent to Microsoft, at ANY price---
He specifically stated that he would like to see the Mozilla project+Netscape+Others have a 'leg up' on Microsoft.
Anyways, just my 2 cents.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell