Slashdot Mirror
Retrial Slated for Microsoft v. Eolas
wwphx writes "Back to trial they go. Microsoft won a decision stating that evidence of a prior browser, Viola, was excluded from the previous trial." From the article: "It had also suggested that Mike Doyle, Eolas' founder and a former UC researcher, had intentionally concealed his knowledge of Viola when filing the patent claim." Commentary also available from Forbes and ZDNet.
Appeals Court Sends Eolas Case Back For New Trial
Copyrights and patents don't become invalid due to non-enforcement. Trademarks, however, can be lost if the trademarked term passes into common use and the owner doesn't do anything about it.
well, sure, that's good and all, except this is the opposite case. Here, MS is being sued by Eolas and the University of California system for violations of a patent that might be invalid because of prior art. if we're going to knee-jerk, we might as well argue the correct direction and fine Eolas / UC for abusing the patent and legal system.
Welcome to the home of the Viola world wide web hypermedia toolkit. The original Xwindows, independent, experimental, scriptable, object oriented, alternative, etc, web browser. ViolaWWW is an extensible World Wide Web hypermedia browser. Based on and drawing from the Viola scripting language and toolkit, ViolaWWW provides a way to build relatively complex hypermedia applications that are beyond the provisions of the current HTML 3.0 standard. The Viola browser was the very first web browser to support interactive embedded objects, and other features such as tables, input forms, stylesheet. Source: viola homepage: http://www.xcf.berkeley.edu/~wei/viola/violaHome.h tml
fuvoo: watch something
They are abusing the system
...oh pardon me, I mean Micro$oft, a.k.a The Devil
How is this abusing the system???
There is a retrial because apparently prior art was concealed in a patent case. Seems legit to me. Or is it only bad because it's Microsoft?
And for the record, I'm a 100% Linux user who is not a Microsoft fan, but this retrial is totally justified IMHO.
Slackware
im not sure if this has been suggested before, but who thinks patents should be (like trademarks) valid on a 'use it or lose it' basis, to prevent submarine patents, like this one?
The author Pei Wei tells his story of the Eolas patent here and how prior art was suppressed.
Maybe if knowingly withholding prior art was a federal crime this would not have happenned.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
http://www.xcf.berkeley.edu/~wei/viola/aboutEolasM icrosoft.html
Slashdot is depressing. Look at the front page:
That's a lot of ligitation nonsense for one day. I'm not blaming the editors since this stuff is the news. But it's disheartening nonetheless. You'd almost forget that this stuff can be fun some of the time.
Geez. Not only are most Slashdotters ignorant, but so are journalists (yeah yeah, big news?). Although doing the exact thing(s) patent covers is (part of) prior art, the reverse is not necessarily true: prior art is a loose term referring to things done in same domain, related things; past inventions, well-known techniques and so on. Prior art means anything relevant to the patent that has already been done; not just things patent itself if covers.
Patent applications usually list tons of prior art, and for a good reason: it gives the impression that the applicant (applicant's lawyers) have done some research regarding novelty of the patented invention, and where it stands with respect to the current state of the art in the field (ok ok; or that's the idea, probably not the reality though).
I like paying taxes. With them I buy civilization -- Oliver Wendell Holmes