New Prior Art Cited In 2nd Eolas Patent Rejection

theodp writes "To be able to reject the Eolas browser plug-in patent a second time, the USPTO had to add the teachings of G.Toye after Eolas' response prompted the examiner to withdraw his previous finding that was based solely on the teachings of the W3C's Dave Raggett and Tim Berners-Lee. It's unclear where the Toye prior art came from, since the W3C didn't offer it when it asked the PTO to overturn the patent. Also, a newly available document reveals that the W3C's widely-publicized prior art filing, which was hastily made without community input, differed little from an unpublicized filing that was made weeks earlier by attorneys from Microsoft and AOL."

Comments

Sexist

[andy666]

From the article:

"A patent so simple a grandmother could understand it."

As a feminist and a 48 yo grandmother I am offended.

So...

[cerberus4696]

So the W3C's prior art filing had prior art? Delicious. :)

Re:software patents are bad

[NanoGator]

"Software patents are censorship."

Now there's a cheap way to earn an insightful mod!