Supreme Court Rejects Microsoft Eolas Appeal

mixmasterjake writes "The U.S. Supreme Court has decided not to hear a Microsoft appeal in the software company's ongoing Web browsing patent dispute with the University of California and Eolas Technologies. The dispute arises over the Eolas patent for 'a system allowing a user of a browser program ... to access and execute an embedded program object.' From the article: "With today's decision, the Supreme Court decided not to hear Microsoft's argument relating to how damages in the case should be calculated. Microsoft had been asking the court to reject a previous ruling that damages should be awarded based on Microsoft's U.S. and foreign sales, saying that the Eolas patent should only apply to U.S. products. The Supreme Court did not give a reason for its rejection of Microsoft's appeal."

Comments

This ruling is not a big deal.

[Repton]

Ars has better coverage.

It's a bit confusing, but as I understand things, this is the story: Eolas were awarded big damages against Microsoft based on their browser plugin patent. This patent was overturned in March 2004, which means Microsoft no longer had to pay those damages. Micosoft's appeal to SCOTUS was against those damages that it doesn't have to pay any more. So, I imagine the SCOTUS were like "WTF?" when they declined to hear the case.

Microsoft's not totally insane, though, because the patent has been reinstated, so MS and Eolas will be going back to court, and MS might lose again and have to pay money again. So they were looking for a precedent to keep a lid on those damages which they might get.

Re:This ruling is not a big deal.

[the eric conspiracy]

This patent was overturned in March 2004

No, it wasn't. The Ars article is out of date and wrong besides. The March 2004 ruling was an appeals judge throwing out the original trial results and ordering a re-exam.

http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,122786,0 0.asp

Recently the USPTO reaffirmed the patent is valid.

Re:The patent system...

[cheesedog]

"Obviousness" is such a tricky, subjective criteria that the USPTO seems to have given up on it. Or, at the least, they've combined it with the "prior art" criteria, so that anything that isn't already in the patent database is both without prior art and non-obvious.

The other test for obviousness (the one that is somewhat sane) is apparently left for the courts to decide after the patent is granted.

You might also be interested to know that our patent system originated in 15th century England, and had nothing to do with novelty, non-obviousness, or prior art and everything to do with exclusive, state-sponsored monopoly (see A Brief History of Idea Monopoly for details on how such commonly manufactured items as soap, salt, glass, and sailcloth were granted patents).

The striking thing here is that our current patent system is starting to look a lot like the old 15th century English one, where "low quality" patents are granted willy-nilly, punishing the general public by levying a sort of tax on everyone except the owner of the patent. In other words, it seems more and more to have everything to do with exclusive, state-sponsored monopoly and nothing to do with protecting innovation and inventors.

Re:Doesn't the Chief Justice set the Court's agend

[krbvroc1]

First off, Roberts didn't participate in this selection. Second, there is a 'cert pool' process whereby if four justices agree to hear the case they will. Third, there are thousands of cases and all cannot be heard each term. Many, many are not heard and the facy they aren't heard doesn't imply anything about how they would rule.

Roberts who answered very little in his Senate Confirmation hearings, did mention he was open to the idea of either getting rid of the 'cert pool' concept and/or increasing the courts caseload each year.