New Prior Art Cited In 2nd Eolas Patent Rejection

Posted by timothy on Sunday August 29, 2004 @05:51AM from the do-ya-feel-lucky-punk dept.

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."

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Re:I may hate microsoft, but... by Minna+Kirai · 2004-08-29 07:23 · Score: 5, Interesting

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"