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."

Comments

Indecision 2004

[bm17]

Ah. Decisions, decisions. I just don't know who I want to see get screwed more: Microsoft, or Eolas. I haven't been this perplexed since November 2nd.

Still, I worry that this whole affair is going to cause Microsoft to step up its evil campaign to acquire bogus software patents. Does anyone know where the money goes if Eolas wins?

Re:Indecision 2004

[Atrax]

"Does anyone know where the money goes if Eolas wins?"

the lawyers. on both sides.

/ cynicism

Re:Indecision 2004

[FrYGuY101]

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

Re:Indecision 2004

[KarmaMB84]

or continue on to sue Mozilla.org, Opera and others?

Re:Indecision 2004

[_avs_007]

In places like Germany though, you cannot patent mathematical algorithms.

Viola Author's Thoughts

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.xcf.berkeley.edu/~wei/viola/aboutEolasM icrosoft.html

incompatible

[barista]

Microsoft could be forced to change Internet Explorer and make it incompatible with some web pages

They're presuming it's compatible in the first place.

Re:how is it...

[Atrax]

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.

Need to support MS

[deep_magic]

No matter how you feel about M$, this is a case that hopefully goes in their direction.

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.

Yay for patent violations.

[standards]

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.

Judge's Name

[Jazzer_Techie]

If you RTFA, you'll discover that the judge's name is S. Jay Plager.
It seems to me that someone whose opinion is guaranteed to be "Plager"-ism isn't the best person to be judging an intellectual property case.

Sorry, I couldn't resist.

Re:Public funds used?

[CRCulver]

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.

Re:Would this also affect firefox?

[periol]

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.

Money vs. freedom

[Old Man Kensey]

oobob wrote:

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.

Re:Money vs. freedom

[oobob]

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!

I'd like to see Microsoft win this one....

[qtp]

If it is true that Microsoft was barred from introducing Mr Wei's object oriented ViolaWWW browser, then it does seem that Microsoft has a good case. Prior art such as this is essential to prevent the enforcing of unreasonable patents on ubiquitous technologies.

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:

The ViolaWWW browser application has provisions for treating viola application files just as any WWW document-- transport via HTTP, and render mini viola applications as if they're any web data.

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".

Near criminal abuse of patent system.

[Bifster]

This case is almost totally driven by Doyle and his lawyers, UC is not really pushing this matter.

As I understand it, the patent involves the plain obvious notion of running active elements inside web pages. But Viola, a number of other technologies, and even discussions of the old WWW mailing list of which Doyle was a part all established prior art efforts of developing this notion before Doyle ever filed his patent.

But the judge in the MS case did not permit effective testimonies to the jury about all this prior art, particularly Viola, based on ridiculous technicalities, essentially exposing himself as a nonrational anti-MS activist. The judge just seemed to be soley focused on sticking it to Microsoft.

But instead what he's done, I believe, is established a precedent where now one man and his team of lawyers get to rape and pillage anyone who has developed some kind of active web page element technology over the past 10 years. This may well include Sun, Macromedia, and Adobe, for example.

Doyle took an obvious idea and has succesfully manipulated the half-witted patent system into netting himself hundreds of millions of dollars of other people's hard work in good faith based on public technology concepts and he's not gonna stop there.

Re:The enemy of my enemy is my enemy.

[Rsriram]

What is to stop Microsoft from hiring a lousy lawyer just so they will lose this case and 500 million but use this case as precedent to go after linux (thru SCO). Afterall MS can afford 1/2 a billion and they would love to get a precedent like you mention.