Feds Reject Eolas Browser Plug-In Patent

theodp writes "The USPTO has issued a preliminary decision invalidating Eolas' claim to Web browser technology central to a case against Microsoft, which could save the software giant more than half a billion dollars in damages. If upheld, this also means Microsoft will not be required to make changes that would have crippled IE's ability to work with plug-ins like QuickTime and Flash. Eolas has 60 days to respond to the decision. The USPTO has only invalidated 151 patents out of nearly 4 million patents awarded since 1988."

Comments

Microsoft's Response

[Liselle]

Remember back when this story first broke, and Microsoft was set to add pop-up confirmation to IE in order to get around the EOLAS issue? That was supposed to happen earlier this year, but there was an update posted at the end of January for those of you who might have missed it.

Microsoft and those politicians

[segment]

I guess it does pay to lobby...

Judge Kollar-Kotelly heard that total donations to political donations from Microsoft and its employees to political parties, candidates and PACs in the 2000 election cycle amounted to more than $6.1 million. During this period, Microsoft and its executives accounted for $2.3 million in soft money contributions, compared to $1.55 million by Enron and its executives for the same period. Soft money is the term generally given to unregulated corporate and individual contributions that cannot go directly to candidates, but which typically goes to political parties. USA: Microsoft's Lobbying Efforts Eclipse Enron

If anyone really thinks these kinds of issues don't affect the outcome of things, I seriously think you need to do your research. Of course it's unethical, but you name one business that hasn't done something unethical for the sake of their company.

Re:Microsoft and those politicians

[thewiz]

If anyone really thinks these kinds of issues don't affect the outcome of things, I seriously think you need to do your research. Of course it's unethical, but you name one business that hasn't done something unethical for the sake of their company.

There's one that immediately comes to mind: Malden Mills, the company that invented Polartec. Here's a little snippet about the president and owner from their website:

After a devastating fire destroyed the mill in December 1995, Aaron Feuerstein, president and owner of Malden Mills(R) and grandson of the founder, garnered international acclaim and awards for his decision to rebuild a state-of-the-art, environmentally friendly facility in the same location. In a display of commitment to the community and employees, Mr. Feuerstein continued to compensate his staff during the rebuilding process.

Had a chance to meet this gentleman and he is a very down-to-earth guy. Honest, truthful, caring - all the things I'd like in a boss.

almost

[jdkane]

This Info World article explains that "The patent office's decision, issued Feb. 25, may be good news for Microsoft, but it is common for claims to be rejected at this stage of patent review" ... so in other words we shouldn't count our chickens before they hatch.

Watch out Acacia....

[FightThePatent]

Now isn't this interesting.. Microsoft's attorneys couldn't invalidate the patent, but the W3C and its supporters seemingly came up with the prior art to invalidate the patent on their re-exam petition.

The current defendants against Acacia's DMT patent (which covers the process of downloading audio/video from a web server) will most likely get a non-infringing verdict, since it's faster and cheaper than trying to invalidate the patent in their current litigation.

When this happens, it means that the patent doesn't apply to the internet. Cable companies would be left to deal with the DMT patent, and would most likely need to file a re-exam of their own and provide prior art to the USPTO to invalidate the DMT patent.

FightThePatent.com provides free prior art found by volunteer searchers to defense patent attorneys.

Patent abuse cases in the audio/video realm (Acacia, SightSound, USA Video) are being tracked on the website.

Developer IE6 lead to multiple installed versions

[starvingartist12]

This update was big news for the web design community, for other reasons. The developer's edition of IE6 (which was a modified version that contained the pop-up) revealed that Windows was able to run multiple Internet Explorer versions simultaneously by merely adding a blank text file!.

For the longest time, people thought it was impossible to run multiple versions of IE on the same machine to do testing on various browsers. It was a huge pain, and it also meant that developers were forced to use the IE version that came with the OS and not downgrade, while Netscape 4.xx to Mozilla installed fine. But now, it's possible to run IE3, IE4, IE5.01, IE5.5 SP2 and IE6 side-by-side (screenshot).

Where patents are invalidated

[waterbear]

I can't believe that out of 4 million patents, only 151 of them were been invalidated since 1988. Scary

That's not what the story meant (but it was ambiguously worded). The report related only to patents invalidated by the Patent Office's re-examination process. That is a relatively new procedure. Many patent challenges are made in court, and those were not being counted. One of the factors dissuading would-be challengers from using the relatively new PTO patent re-examination process is that it has been perceived as not close enough to fairly balanced, and too likely to uphold the patent. Many challengers have preferred for that reason to reserve their patent challenges for federal court.

-wb-

Re:So I guess there isn't much hope for One Click?

[PierceLabs]

There is a common misconception that patents == inventions which simply isn't the case. You patent a method for doing something AND that something doesn't even have to be truly useful to anyone (hard to prove utility) or work.

As such it doesn't really surprise me. Heck there are multiple patents for ketchup dispensers :)