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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."
well, I'd say part of it is in the long drawn out patent process itself. you register your invention, then wait for the patent. and wait, and wait, and wait.
then the patent comes through, and you grab your legal flamethrower.
Screw you all! I'm off to the pub
If Eolas wins this case, expect a massive deluge of Patent suits across the entire industry.
And you thought SCO vs IBM was wild....just wait, methinks it will get worse before it gets better.
"Does anyone know where the money goes if Eolas wins?"
the lawyers. on both sides.
/ cynicism
Screw you all! I'm off to the pub
The best thing that can happen to patent law is to have a big player like MS get screwed by it.
Then MS can start putting their lobbying bucks into fixing patent law.
The only problem is that MS (with congress) will likely fix it in a way that only benefits MS.
So I guess it's moot.
Look at it this way.
If Microsoft wins, they have keep millions, and Eolas gets screwed.
If Eolas wins, Microsoft STILL has billions in reserve, has a legit reason to patent everything under the sun, and Eolas has filled its legal coffers for an attack on another browser which can take plug-ins, like Opera or FireFox
"If we let things terrify us, life will not be worth living."
- Seneca
or continue on to sue Mozilla.org, Opera and others?
This would affect all browsers that use embedded plug-in and applet technology. Opera, Firefox, Netscape, IE - they're all in the same boat. In the past, Eolas has claimed they would only go after Microsoft, in order to give Mozilla a boost, but I'm sure that wouldn't last long.
The sad thing is that the real loser if Eolas wins is the end user. Rather than license the Eolas patent, browsers would most likely switch to an interface of some sort that forces the user to choose to use the plug-in or applet to view a site.
Shouldn't you like that someone who actually created something get money from Microsoft, whether or not it was done in a fair system? Are we going to be stupid enough to let people like MS manuiplate patent law and bitch when someone little gets his?
NO!
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.
To throw that away for the sake of dinging MS a paltry couple of billion is to undercut the foundation of our own remaining few liberties. I don't know about you, but to me that's destroying the village in order to save it.
-- Old Man Kensey