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USPTO Reexam Finds $521M Eolas Patent Valid
theodp writes "As predicted earlier on Slashdot, looks like the W3C goofed by shutting out the public and asking the Patent Office to base its reexamination of the Eolas Web Plug-In Patent solely on prior art promoted by Microsoft. The USPTO has reaffirmed the validity of the $521M patent, rejecting the W3C's prior art as deficient for not demonstrating the capability of ongoing real-time manipulation and control by the user. The USPTO also considered but rejected the prior art of the Viola Browser, which formed the basis for Microsoft's appellate argument. Ironically, Eolas' defense was bolstered by the arguments of its expert witness, 2005 EFF Pioneer Award Winner Ed Felten."
I thought everybody worked around the problem in newer browsers, so isn't this just a story about one really rich-again mofo?
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
HyperTIES is an early hypermedia browser developed under the direction of Dr. Ben Shneiderman at the University of Maryland Human Computer Interaction Lab.
HyperTIES supported browsing interactive hypermedia including formatted text and scalable PostScript graphics, including interactive software components like applets, pie menus, embedded graphical menus, text and graphics editors, etc, written in the NeWS object oriented dialect of PostScript.
The HyperTIES hypermedia browser was also integrated with an authoring tool, based on the Unipress Emacs text editor, which could remotely control the browser (so Emacs could navigate the browser and display the content you're editing), and the browser could remotely control Emacs (so you could create hypermedia interfaces with text links and graphical menus that drove Emacs).
Illustration: HyperTIES Browser (right) and UniPress Emacs Multi Window Text Editor Authoring Tool (left), tab windows and pie menus, running under the NeWS Window System.
Illustration: HyperTIES Browser NeWS Client/Server Software Architecture.
Paper: Designing to Facilitate Browsing: A Look Back at the Hyperties Workstation Browser
By Ben Shneiderman, Catherine Plaisant, Rodrigo Botafogo, Don Hopkins, William Weiland.
Since browsing hypertext can present a formidable cognitive challenge, user interface design plays a major role in determining acceptability. In the Unix workstation version of Hyperties, a research-oriented prototype, we focussed on design features that facilitate browsing. We first give a general overview of Hyperties and its markup language. Customizable documents can be generated by the conditional text feature that enables dynamic and selective display of text and graphics. In addition we present:
[...] Since storyboards are text files, they can be created and edited in any text editor as well as be manipulated by UNIX facilities (spelling checkers, sort, grep, etc...). On our SUN version Unipress Emacs provides a multiple windows, menus and programming environment to author a database. Graphics tools are launched from Emacs to create or edit the graphic components and target tools are available to mark the shape of each selectable graphic element. The authoring tool checks the links and verifies the syntax of the article markup. It also allows the author to preview the database by easily following links from Emacs buffer to buffer. Author and browser can also be run concurrently for final editing.
[...] Implications of Graphics in Hypertext
Hyperties incorporates graphics while preserving the embedded menu approach used for textonly documents. A displayed page can mix text and graphics while allowing arbitrarily-shaped regions to be designated as targets, which provide links to other articles. The addition of graphics provides significant advantages (14). Information that is structured in the form of charts, graphs, maps, and images may be explored with the same facility as text. But the use of graphics in hypertext requires more work on the part of the author to produce comprehensible documents. There is no simple technique for emphasizing the targets that is acceptable in all cases, and the author
Take a look and feel free: http://www.PieMenu.com
Erm. No.
First to file is much better than first to invent. In the case you mention that you invent someting first but someone else files first (both arrived at the same invention independently), your invention would make their invention INVALID as it would be perfectly valid prior art against their invention.
There's a few complications as regards the way certain countries and regions handle situations like this, but they system, isn't designed to punish you for being slow to file.
Here in Europe we have situations like this quite frequently where someone will oppose a granted patent using as evidence their own (or other) internal documents (or even product brochures). If it can be shown they genuinely have a point, then the patent could be invalidated or, in rare cases they could get to share the patent.
First to invent requires HUGE amounts of perfect paperwork at all times and is open to all sorts of fraud.
Plus, the US is the only major country that doesn't have first-to-file as a basic concept. In fact, that plus opposition boards etc - they are simply copying the European patent office.
Troc's dubious podcast and blog: http://www.trocnet.net
I looked it up again. The patent is entitled "Distributed hypermedia method for automatically invoking external application providing interaction and display of embedded objects within a hypermedia document", and that's the way the claims seem to read, too.
So, invoking external applications that don't embed, or invoking built-in functionality, would seem to be OK. I believe this means invoking a built-in MPEG4 player would be fine, as would be Javascript/SVG animation. Furthermore, both of those do have clear prior art and probably weren't addressed in this lawsuit.
You can read the patent yourself.
No, not because we hate Microsoft or something. But cases like this might, just might make someone else besides geeks and techies think "you know, maybe these software-patents aren't such a good idea after all?"
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
First-to-file doesn't affect prior art. What it means is that if there are two competing patent claims, the first to file wins. That's much saner than the current system.
If you come up with an idea independently, there is a simple way of protecting yourself from patent claims against you: publish your idea. Making your project open source probably helps, but it is probably also a good idea to write up an explanation and submit it to an archive server or even get it published in a journal.
Patent law is pretty clear: if you don't publish your idea and you don't patent it either, you shouldn't have any rights to claim ownership of it.
1) As another reply has indicated, independent invention is not, per se, a defense against infringement. Of course, the timing and nature of the various acts leading to the invention by the inventor and the infringer could have an effect on the validity of the patent claims.
Firstly, if the inventor (that is the person(s) identified as the inventors in the patent) copied the invention from anyone else (the accured infringer or a third party) the patent claims are invalid under 35 USC 102(f). Also, if the the invention was patented or described in a printed publication, or in public use or one sale in the US more than one year prior to the effective filing date of the patent application it is similarly invalid.
2) The patent, from the day it is issued, can be applied against the acts making, using, and selling of the invention, regardless of when the accused infringer started those acts; liability for infringing, however, can only be assessed for those acts actually occuring on or after the issued date; previous acts don't count. Also, regarding liability, acts more than 6 years prior to filing the infringement case don't count. This, of course, applies only in cases brought relatively late in the life of the patent.
Additionally, and most important in the case of newly issued patents, the Court can enjoin the infringer from performing further such acts as part of the remedies granted the patentee. This is how, other than the costly assessment of damages, that the patentee can shut down the infringer's actions.
There is an interesting doctrine I vaguely recall that might be relevant in some circumstances of timing to software patents, that accused infringers might be able to escape liability if they were practicing a method covered by a method claim in a patent; this doctrine is called a "shop right". While searching title 35 (the patent law) I stumbled on 35 USC 273 which on a quick glance, seems to express that long held judicial doctrine. Traditionally, this protected a person using a secret method to make something from being shut down due to another getting a patatent on the method, if the the infringer came up with the method prior to the inventor of the patent. Perhaps an IP lawyer can comment on that.
As long as the US allow software patents, some filings will actually be genuine patentable innovations, which will then meet stringent tests. I mean, the USPTO may be delivering lots of bogus patents, that would be invalidated on any challenge, but there are forced to be a few filings that really meet the criteria of being deserving for protection.
In fact; it is not surprising to see Microsoft - who file thousand of junk patents a year - on the wrong side of an argument with an inventor who filed because he thought he had found something genuinely innovative.
This is not a signature.
Firefox can just start shipping with the FlashBlock extension pre-installed. Problem (and violation) solved.