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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."
I disagree. Copyright is the protection you should get for your code, not patent.
Patent is far too broad to cover something like software algorithms. Software is another science where ideas are built upon other's ideas. Nothing's built in a vacuum here, but yet people still come off thinking that their code is somehow special and that nobody else would have thought of it.
Patent is obviously a bad idea because we're winding up with situations like this stupid Eolas thing. It's like someone (Fraunhoffer?) thinking they are the only ones who can do audio compression because the MP3 patent covers any similar algorithm. While they haven't sued anyone yet as far as I know, they have stated that Vorbis likely infringes on their patents. That's just ridiculous.
Microsoft has succeeded in controlling the global software market by prevailing in at least these three main areas:
1. Convincing everyone that Windows is the universal platform, when in fact it runs on fewer architectectures (one, mainly) than virtually any other OS around;
2. Exacting an OS tax on virtually every personal computer sold;
3. Using large blocks of public domain code in their software, while getting to treat under law in most jurisdictions as their own copyrighted work.
Now add to that list: Making sure that the only software patent royalties that get paid, get paid to them.
Since the ex post facto rejection of the Eolas patent does nothing to influence software patent law in general, your elation regarding the Eolas patent disallowance is sorely misplaced, IMHO. Microsoft simply paid to get it overturned. All patents in retrospect are obvious, and just about any scrap of paper read 10+ years later can be made to seem preemptive if all you have to do is say that it is.
If Eolas were suing Microsoft on the exact same legal grounds, the suit would have most surely failed. Look at how simply having money -- some report it came largely from Microsoft -- has prolonged the circus that is the SCO lawsuit. It's clearly about money, not software patent law.
Is just over two months from now immediate enough?
Are you implying that a Kerry presidency would treat patents any differently?
Sorry, no. The Rep and Dem parties haven't made any true difference on Intellectual Property law in their platforms. Bills like the Sonny Bono Act get bi-partisan support.
It's even possible that Democratic politicians would favor Eolas in this case, since the Clinton adminstration demonstrated itself to be anti-Microsoft (relative to the successive Republican leadership, that is). They might be inclined to "rescue a common-inventor from big business"