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Argument Held in $565 mil Microsoft Patent Case
Grotius writes "As reported in CNET, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (the court that hears patent appeals) heard oral argument in an appeal from a $565 million award against Microsoft for infringing patent rights held by the University of California and Eolas. The University and Eolas share the rights to a patent that they claim covers plug-ins and applets that are invoked through a Web browser.
The case has broad implications for the internet -- Microsoft could be forced to change Internet Explorer and make it incompatible with some web pages. However, the issue before the court was narrow: Whether Microsoft should have been permitted to present evidence to the jury of prior art in the form of an earlier web browser called Viola created by Pei Wei."
http://www.xcf.berkeley.edu/~wei/viola/aboutEolasM icrosoft.html
University of California is a public institution, but it is run like a private one compared to the other state university system, California State University. Most private schools possess things like intellectual property.
Mr Wei's page about the Viola engine (and it's use as the base for the ViolaWWW browser) has what appears to be a clear example of using a plugin architecture to support filetypes that are not supported by the browser natively:
It does seem to me (although IANAPL) that this very clearly describes an implementation of what was later called a "plugin". I certainly hope that the courts do rule in favor of Microsoft's appeal, as the enforcing of this patent could seriously hurt the Mozilla based (and possibly other) Open Source browsers (and the platforms we use them on.
A lot of people seemed to be rooting for Eolas on this one, but that is short sighted and misguided crap in light of the fact that Microsoft can afford to pay nearly any award granted that might be.
I'm just surprised that they didn't swallow the "poison pill" in order to push whatever new, license encumbered, replacement for plugins that they might have waiting in the wings (or alternatively, not introduce any replacement, but agree to pay the royalties on the technology in order to de-comoditize the browser market in thier favor). So now I say to Balmer and Co, "Keep fighting the good fight. For once you're fighting to keep the web Free".
Read, L
It does matter how the outcome is achieved. The ends do not justify the means, not even when it's a university professor trying to extort money from Microsoft. One reason we have the (few, and eroding all the time, but still meaningful) civil liberties we do in America is because the whole foundation of our legal system is the idea that there must be a fair process, not just a fair result.
What I was getting at in my post is that the fairest process is one equally applied. To let Microsoft game the industry and then have Eolas not get their due according to the rules of the industry isn't right either. We should be happy that if something unfair goes around, it comes around, unless you'd rather we shrug off the only sense of justice we'll likely have in IP law for years (besides the impending implosion of SCO). If we're opposed to it all we're opposed to it all, but remember, I said nothing about the fairness of the claim within the system. I only mentioned the fundamental fairness of the system, which most people here are opposed to. You seem to have confused the two.
This is how the patent system works (check slashdot anyday for examples). We shouldn't bitch if a company that is known for manuiplating the system finally becomes the victim. You seem to have overreacted to the suggestion that we should be happy when immoral procedures finally punish those whom they usually benefit. Excessive idealization and abstraction of morals does that to people. Now, sit back and enjoy the fireworks!
Hmm.. what I remember from the last time this came up was that it would only affect Microsoft's ActiveX implimentation. Opera and Mozilla both use the origional Netscape Plugin Architecture (compatible with netscape 4.7x still, I believe) which is not affected by this patent.
Plugins are used in many applications, and they don't simpley have a patent on plugins. They have a patent on the way Active X does things. Whether it proves valid in court or not, I don't care. I don't like Active X.
Look back on the origional mention.. that's what I got out of it, at least..
I was curious and did a search on patents held by Eolas and invented by Michael Doyle, and I found this patent6 16701&F=0
http://v3.espacenet.com/textdoc?DB=EPODOC&IDX=US6
Entitled "Method and apparatus for identifying features of multidimensional image data in hypermedia systems", it only seems to be a patent describing ways to view or manipulate 3 dimensional images in a web brower, the method of which being execution of a "Program action"
The program action can include, for example, browser redirection, encapsulated HTML, dynamic HTML and downloading and running full-frame applets in the user's Web page.
In places like Germany though, you cannot patent mathematical algorithms.
This is being fought on two fronts
1. They(MS) have appealed the decision by the lower court in favor of Eolas.
2. The patent itself is under dispute.
The patent has so much negative consequences that even W3C is supporting the Microsoft case.
http://www.w3.org/2003/10/28-906-briefing
Hope the web stays intact.
Life is just a conviction.
Martin Lueck a partner at Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi who is representing UC and Eolas, said Wei's demonstration of his browser in May 1993 didn't qualify as legitimate prior art because it was on a standalone computer that wasn't hooked up to the Internet.
Wasn't plugged in so didn't count, nah nah nee nah nah, im a clever lawyer!