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Online Rich Media Patented
An anonymous reader writes "Balthasar has been awarded a patent on "Methods, systems, and processes for the design and creation of rich-media applications via the internet" ( USPO 7,000,180). In an article at news.com the company claims that "The patent covers all rich-media technology implementations including Flash, Flex, Java, AJAX and XAML and all device footprints which access rich-media Internet applications including desktops, mobile devices, set-top boxes and video game consoles". The patent was filed on 9 February 2001, five years after the original Flash application, FutureWave Splash, was introduced in May 1996."
No web 2.0 without paying a royalty to our new overlords!
Aside from Flash, Java et al, even IE 4.0 and Netscape Communicator 4.0 used just Javascript to deliver rich interactive content. IE 4.0 even used it in their desktop. In NS it was called Netcaster and included quite sophisticated channel finders and a "webtop". They also both provided documents, tools and APIs for providers to create rich experiences. Both browsers may have failed to deliver a decent experience, but anyone claiming in 2001 (a full 3-4 years after these browsers did it) that using JS and HTML to deliver interactive content is either novel or original is flat out wrong.