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."

Comments

Slashdot EZ Post TM

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[ ] Slashdotted already!. I bet their server runs on $topic_item too

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Hey Eolas!

[Chordonblue]

Party in Middle Earth tonight! You're buying!

Signed,

Frodo and Gimli

Re:As long as they don't attack Open Source

[SpaceLifeForm]

They are waiting. They lost this on purpose basically to give legitimacy to software patents. They are gaming the system.

They won't need to sue anyone once they have total control. And that is their goal.

Re:I forget

[pgpckt]

Are you serious???? Have you not heard of the Patent Reform Act of 2005, H.R. 2795 ?

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d109:h.r.0 2795: ( the bill)

http://www.ipo.org/template.cfm?Section=Patent_Ref orm1&Template=/TaggedPage/TaggedPageDisplay.cfm&TP LID=196&ContentID=18391&requestTimeout=500 (everything you could ever possibly want to know)

This is making major MAJOR changes to patent law (prior use rights, first to file instead of first to invent, creation of public opposition proceedings, publication of all patents, etc, etc, etc.) in 10 or 12 MAJOR areas of patent law.

And this thing is going to pass. It has wide congressional bipartisan support and the support of the all the major players. And it is a good thing for consumers.

Yikes, get your facts straight.

Re:I forget

[troc]

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.

Re:As predicted earlier on Slashdot,

[Anonymous Coward]

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Microsoft adds support for the OpenDocument format.
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