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

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.

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No, it wasn't. The Ars article is out of date and wrong besides.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.