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Appeals Court Sends Eolas Case Back For New Trial
Rolan writes "News.com is reporting that an Appeals court has partially overturned the lower court's decision in favor of Eolas. From the story: "Microsoft on Wednesday claimed a victory in a high-profile Web browser patent dispute, as an appeals court partially reversed a lower court decision that left the software giant exposed to $565 million in damages." The article does not say what part was or was not overturned." Reader shogusumi adds a link to the ruling itself (PDF), supplies a link handy for catching up with the claims at issue here, and writes "As a refresher, this is the case that claims that the functionality provided by IE through the use of embed, applet, and object tags violates a patent owned by Eolas and the University of California."
IHMO, some things should remain unpatentable....until both sides on the IP issue agree on that, the patent lawyers will continue to make everyone pay. I don't think case will be the one that does it either.
Just my 2 cents.........
Is there a reason why Microsoft cannot just buy the patent over? Or is it waiting until this patent is set firmly in the stone (i.e. cannot be appealed further), then it buys over the patent?
I don't know which is worse, MS lost the case or owns the patent in the end.
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
This is the second major victory for Microsoft in two days. Slashdot didn't pick up the story but yesterday M$ won a pretty large appeal in the 9th circuit which dealt with patent and license issues having to do with ActiveX. While we all know ActiveX is terrible and its usuage has created one of the larger security holes known to man the victory is still a bad one because of the message that it sends to the lower courts. That issues involved a plug in developers access to APIs and whether they were allowed to create whatever they want. It is very legal jargon heavy and hard to summeraize the real implications, thats why I think it recieved such little press. The big suprise is that this happend in the 9th circuit where they are normally very friendly to the common man.
The bottom line is that M$ is on a winning streak and we need to cross our fingers in the hopes that some judge is brave enough to step up against them.
Be better in bed. Wikiafterdark!
From the ruling:
- AMW
"Microsoft on Wednesday claimed a victory in a high-profile Web browser patent dispute, as an appeals court partially reversed a lower court decision that left the software giant exposed to $565 million in damages."
MS is left having to pay $565 million, and they claim this a victory? What exactly would be a loss??
"There is a reason Linux is free"
~me~
I just hope this doesn't lead to a decline in Firefox use. Or maybe I do.......The more people that use Firefox, the more spyware, popups, and holes are exposed.........I hope everyone moves back to IE. Ossus
Eolas pretty much have the patent on the way the modern browser works. I feel that this patent should not be granted. I no body has this paptent to their credit. It would be a BIG loss to the browser world
fuvoo: watch something
That was a little different though. In that case the company disregarded some of the policies set out in the API license. The question becomes in that case more whether lisense is legal or not, rather then how evil microsoft is.
MS didn't 'win' anything today dummy.
RTFA.
Not all activeX is bad. I work for a company that does GREAT things with Active X http://www.advizorsolutions.com/
No they didn't nesassarly "win" but they greatly benefited by having this kicked back to the lower court. So even though its still up to the l. court to decide what to do this is still a big plus for M$.
Be better in bed. Wikiafterdark!
I'll admit I'm not the biggest MS fan in the world. However, if the situation were reversed, and MS was claiming to own the patent, I think a lot of peoples' tones would be different (i.e. hoping that MS wasn't granted the patent). I hate to say it, but I sort of hope MS wins, but with the outcome being that no one is awarded the patent. That way no browser will be (or potentially be) affected, whether it be IE, Firefox, Opera, or whatever. But that's just MHO...
Slackware
This product is horrible.. The Demo renders like crap in Firefox! ;)
What are we going to do tonight Brain?
More and more lawsuits are winding up in "News for Nerds". Of course it's sharkbait, tainting geeks with the blood in the water. But maybe a diet of geeks, vs. ex-jock corporate fatcats, will fatten the lawyers on more constructive food for thought. Can the days of legislative lintian reports be that far off?
--
make install -not war
I am very conflicted here , I feel M$ are buying justice , however on the EOLAS issue i feel slightly conflicted . I am aware that they have said they wouldnt use the patent on any open source project , however i feel this patent is just as wrong as the other software patents. /lose for the OSS world , if they win it stands to support the idea software patents are a good thing , if they lose then well its another bouht victory for microsoft
The position i see EOLAS in is of a lose
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
But in this case, Eolas is the enemy of everyone. If Microsoft does well here, it's not a victory so much for Microsoft as it is for everyone. I wish them luck.
This is from the www-talk@w3.org mailing list archives:
From: Mike Doyle
Please note from our Web site that, in almost all cases, Eolas' Weblet-related technologies will be licensed free of charge for noncommercial use.
Does this mean that the only case that it DOES violate it is if you're Microsoft?
I dislike a lot of things about Microsoft, but it looks to me like they were exercising on Mr. Doyle's offer. I could be wrong..
"hard to summeraize"
;^P
Undoubtedly
From what I know of the Eolas case, MS is right (did I just say that?), so I hope they win. OTOH, the cynic in me says that only very rich companies will be able to afford justice.
Oh well, I can still hope for an apple tree to fall on the chief executive assholes in Redmond.
Is this really short for "Roland Piquepaille"??? On the one hand, this is not an annoying piece of clumsily rewritten drivel. On the other hand, it is on Slashdot. Inquiring Slashdotters want to know!
The president of Eolas once said he wouldn't go after Mozilla. If FF becomes popular enough, do you figure he's going to keep his "word"?
You just keep crossing your fingers. Microsoft can afford to pay Eolas off. Your favorite cheap software foundations can't.
A victim of the insidious Roland Piquepaille!!!
You cannot fool us, Rolan Piquepaille! You and your "golden master dicks". Ha!!!
(Notice, we filed an Amicus brief on this case, and are happy with the court's finding because it matches our brief)
Specifically, the ruling overturned the district court's incorrect assertion that the Viola Web browser, and specifically DX34 was "abandoned suppressed or concealed" and therefore did not qualify as something that could be shown to the jury as an example of prior art.
To quote from today's ruling "The district court's conclusion inappropriately narrowed the definition of "invention" as used in section 102(g)"
The court goes on to note that a change in version number does not necessarily constitute a new invention and that version DX37, which they tried to demo to the court, just represents an improved version of Wei's invention.
In our brief, we argued that that the intellectual property rights of all software developers must be protected, including those developers who wish to give their inventions away without charge.
Those who wish to donate their work to the "IP commons" to enlist others for help and feedback are not abandoning it for others to patent. Software developers often proactively choose to do this as an act of beneficence or as a part of their software development process. This was certainly the case for Pei-Yuan Wei, the inventor of the Viola browser that should be considered prior art to invalidate the Eolas patent.
A sig?!? I don't think so.....
Reader shogusumi adds a link to the ruling itself (PDF), supplies a link handy for catching up with the claims at issue here, and writes "As a refresher, this is the case that claims that the functionality provided by IE through the use of embed, applet, and object tags violates a patent owned by Eolas and the University of California."
/. editor.
Already he's done more than your average
Microsoft violated it and doesn't want to pay. So they go to court and each side tries to get the best price. Everything is normal about this. Microsoft earned much money with their Browser as an addition to their OS and so they have to pay.
Doesn't work at all in Safari, therefore it looks like crap and if it looks like crap..it must be crap
Of course they will. They just have not been offered enough money.
MicroSloth says to themselves, "how much to buy vs. how much to sue". Obviously, The Sloth calculated the equasion correctly this time.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
I was really hoping M$ would be hoist by their own petard on this one. Maybe this will scare them into giving up some of the patents they already have.
No, you can't patent anything. Lawyers, for instance, know what a hassle the patent system is and aren't about to sick that system on themselves by allowing legal strategy patents, as a hypothetical example.
They know what a benefit it is to their business to make sure all other fields of endeavor are patentable.
If I recall correctly, some years ago in the US surgeons turned down the chance to lock up their work by allowing patents on surgical techniques.
Digital Citizen
Indeed, it would likely go something like: Mozilla.org isn't doing things *our way* SUE SUE SUE SUE SUE
There are 10 patents on nose-picking, one for each finger.
If the Viola browser anticipates, then it anticipates. If the inventions claimed in the patent are obvious over the Viola browser, then so be it. If the Fed Circuit wanted to let the judge know that everything in the unenforceability analysis was wide open for consideration, the panel could have just said so. IMHO there was no need to emphasize that aspect. Just opening the door would have been enough, especially if, as the panel seemed to indicate, the trial judge had "doubts" about Doyle's credibility on the issue.
The big push now is for global "IP" protection. It's a major trade issue,and the largest players are all pushing for it. I'd say it will be pretty hard in the next few years to keep software patents out of the international scene, or get rid of them where they already are, especially the US where we are producing less and less tangibles. They just are not going to give up on them. worse than the Terminator. Even with the new shiny and allegedly improved "open source" heavyweights like IBM, you don't see them advocating getting rid of the entire concept of software patents. they certainly could, they issue press releases daily. that's all it would take on their part. I can't think of a single large corporate exception actually. It might exist, I just can't name any offhand. "They" all want them, and big money "They" runs global politics, we'll take that as a conversational gimmee, so, eventually they'll be *everywhere*. That's my SWAG on it.
It's because of "here and now" profits. These various pols and big business people and "investors" want money now,as much as they can get with as little effort as can be arranged, so they could care less about the far future or how much it will screw things up. They figure they'll be rich and retired by then,that's all they care about really.
Geeks could actually get software patents about ended completely within days-if they had a union or powerful org and *struck* over the issue. that's all it would take. Shut the sucker down. Shut business down for 24 hours, completely. It's quite possible too, they could so do it. Geeks run modern civilization, they are wicked smart in a lot of ways, yet they all still take orders, no matter how stupid, from the pol and business weasels. Makes ya wonder sometimes...
This sounds eminently sensible. I wish I had mod points.
Is it your "5 year old son", your "4 year old" son/daughter, your "3 year old" daughter, or your dog?
Maybe he like Cuba. Sheesh.
666-607: 6th floor apartment of the beast