Eolas COO Says IE Changes A Shame

capt turnpike writes "Hot on the heels of Microsoft's announcement of a 60-day period in which Web developers will have to change their pages' architecture, the COO of Eolas, the company whose suit forced these changes, gives an interview to eWEEK.com in which he says these changes are a disappointment. Confused? From the article: 'There is no court order forcing Microsoft to do anything. Anything that is being done is of Microsoft's own choosing,' His position is that publicizing these forced changes strengthens MS's case."

Comments

Very disappointing

[blane.bramble]

From the point of view of his cash flow...

Re:Very disappointing

[amliebsch]

Exactly. The summary doesn't make it clear that he is saying that the changes are not required because Microsoft could simply pay them for the privilege of not changing it. I say, you sue somebody for doing something, you forfeit your right to complain when they stop doing it!

Re:Very disappointing

[JordanL]

It's just lucky for them that they didn't try to sue IBM over a patent this frivilous...

Re:Very disappointing

[drakaan]

no kidding:

'There is no court order forcing Microsoft to do anything. Anything that is being done is of Microsoft's own choosing,'

So, the court order didn't force anybody to do anything, I guess. Oh, except to pay Eolas bucketloads of cash forthe supposedly novel concept of being able to open up non-html content by clicking some arbitrarily low number of times.

I'm sure they weren't thinking this could *ever* happen [shock!]...

Re:Very disappointing

[gad_zuki!]

This guy will be kicking himself the rest of his days remembering telling Balmer "NO! 50 Million is not enough, we demand 250! Or we'll see you in court." So long patent abuser.

Even if MS paid them it would be a bit like dealing with kidnappers or blackmailers. The price could rise again when the contract is us.

Re:Very disappointing

[gid13]

Yeah. The article, on the other hand, does:

"Eolas Chief Operating Officer Mark Swords called on the software maker to purchase a patent license instead of worsening the browsing experience."

Re:Very disappointing

[Ucklak]

Microsoft didn't pay for it in the first place so Eolas has every right to complain.

Microsoft stole it and got caught. Instead of paying for the right to use it, MS has opted to screw the customer again.
MS' fight on this is pretty much saying that this technology would exist anyway without Eolas and we're [MS] the ones getting picked on.

I call BS, MS wants a free ride and would call shenanigans if anyone would use their patent on anything without paying.
Double click on the mouse, maybe they'll let it slide but anything that Linux can use, you'd better believe there will be lawsuits.

Re:Very disappointing

[PygmySurfer]

Except Microsoft didn't "steal" anything, the patent is ridiculous, and the Eolas suit should've been thrown out.

Re:Very disappointing

[Ucklak]

If you and I are artists in the graphic sense and we have easels next to each other, you paint a circle with a dot in it, and I do the same after you did it but I sell it as my own, how is that not stealing?
That is exactly what Microsoft did.

Anybody can paint a circle with a dot in it and it's painfully obvious that it would exist anyway but you painted it first and claimed ownership of it. If I make millions on my(your) famous painting, are you just going to let me live in my mansion while you're on the sidewalk peddling your wares?

Re:Very disappointing

[PygmySurfer]

Except you could claim prior art, as many pictures of circles with a dot in the center (A bulls-eye!) have been painted in the past.

What's next, is Eolas going to file suit against every web browser capable of displaying in-line images?

Eolas

[deckert_za]

Who the heck is Eolas, and why is he reading my drive?
Oh wait .. that's General Failure.

--deckert

Re:Eolas

[Anonymous Coward]

Why Eolas is Hercules' sidekick, of course.

Not forced...

[whitehatlurker]

But Microsoft sure isn't going to pay Eolas for "licensing fees". Eolas is probably sad that MicroSoft has bought them outright.

Re:Not forced...

[whitehatlurker]

That should be: "Eolas is probably sad that MicroSoft hasn't bought them outright"

Re:Not forced...

[blueflash2o]

i glad they didn't because microsoft would use their new patent against the other browsers

No, What's A Shame Is

[Naked Chef]

the completely broken patent and copyright system in the U.S. that allows such ridiculous lawsuits to happen in the first place, which encourages companies like Microsoft to file thousands of "defensive" patents per year, exacerbating the problem. But nobody can figure out what stifles innovation....hmm.

Re:No, What's A Shame Is

[heinousjay]

I've gotta say, I don't really see the innovation yet being stifled. Maybe it's a foregone conclusion, and maybe I'm just missing something, but things do seem to be proceeding apace. Honestly, it all seems a bit 'Chicken Little' to me.

Maybe the fact that people can't 'innovate' tiny little changes to other people's ideas is forcing creativity to higher levels.

I have nothing to back my opinions up, unfortunately, but I also have nothing refute them.

Re:No, What's A Shame Is

[NialScorva]

The fact that this company basically patented a software design pattern isn't evidence? Modular achitectures are one of the most basic ideas of software, and this company claims that it owns that idea in the area of web browsing.

Re:No, What's A Shame Is

[Anonymous Coward]

Notice how much good their thousands of "defensive" patents did in this case?

Re:No, What's A Shame Is

[0xdeadbeef]

Damn you, you overflowed my ignore list. Now I must find the least vacuous contrarian to remove.

Re:No, What's A Shame Is

[Jtheletter]

I've gotta say, I don't really see the innovation yet being stifled. [...] Maybe the fact that people can't 'innovate' tiny little changes to other people's ideas is forcing creativity to higher levels.

This has nothing to do with a lack of creativity or inventiveness on the inventor's part, this has to do with broad and vague patents that cover too much, or too obvious things. In addition the entire patent space is comepltely cluttered with these sorts of things making sorting out relevance from the noise frustrating, time consuming and expensive.

Being an engineer I've had quite a few ideas for new things, one of the biggest problems I have faced is trying to determine if it's even worth applying for a patent or spending time developing it. Unlike a huge corporation my funds are very limited, so I don't have an extra $1,000++ to just take a shot at patenting something that may not even be accepted, or even worse - is accepted but is later found to infringe on someone else's overly broad patent. Have you ever tried to research existing patents to determine if something you've come up with is new? Not only is it time consuming and difficult, the language of the patents makes it nearly impossible to figure out if something applies even when you think you may have found a hit. The solution is to hire a patent company/attorney to do the search for you, but now we're talking easily $150/hr in fees for the service, and on top of that your patent needs to be worded in the same obfuscated legalease to have a chance at actually providing your idea with protection.

Innovation is being stifled by the sharp increase in barriers to entry. I've looked into it and just applying for a patent and including search and support costs it easily costs $2500 on the cheap end. Sure you could just pay the patent office fees and give them what you've come up with on your own but you'd basically be throwing your money away since in all likelyhood you will need some sort of councel to get it through the system.

All of these huge corporations filing "defensive" patents is making it so difficult/expensive that the individual inventor who doesn't already have business funding capital is pretty much out of luck. :(

Re:No, What's A Shame Is

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you for that, Captain Irrelevant. It's sad that what should be common sense, you actually have to spell out on Slashdot: That defensive patents cannot protect against 100.0% of cases does not mean that they're not useful, which is implied by parent AC's moronic statement.

Re:No, What's A Shame Is

[AndersOSU]

Why are you ignoring him again? Because by ignoring anyone that chooses to express a slightly different opinion than the one you hold the world becomes a happier place...

Feel free to replace some other differnt thinking chap with me.

Re:No, What's A Shame Is

[Hoi Polloi]

It is a shame that Ebola (or whatever they call themselves) isn't going to get licensing $ on top of their bloated jury award lottery winnings. *drying tears*

It is amazing that I find myself feeling sympathetic for bloated megacorp Microsoft.

I wonder if I'll ever see tort, patent, or copyright reform in my lifetime?

Re:No, What's A Shame Is

[gad_zuki!]

>I've gotta say, I don't really see the innovation yet being stifled.

You are missing the obvious because companies make an effort not to advertise their litigation problems. The last couple companies I've worked at were under the gun for some ridiculous obvious-type patents. They were either in litigation or ended up paying royalties. The royalties money is higher than you think. They pass the price onto you, the consumer, when you buy their products. So its transparent only in the way that you're paying more for goods for no good reason.

As far as stifling go, well, that's a tough one. Companies with the resources or just the chutpaz to brave the patent minefield tend to do well enough, but how many start-ups or products get aborted early on because of fears of patents? I'd think more than we know.

Re:No, What's A Shame Is

[Bill Dog]

In addition to friends and foes lists, and modifiers for them, Slashdot should have a global "party line" list. The many here who only want to hear popular opinions could put themselves on the list, and filter out those who aren't on it. Then others of us could assign a modifier to bring all the "+5 I Agree" moderations back down to normal.

Re:No, What's A Shame Is

[Anonymous Coward]

--
"It only takes 20 years for a liberal to become a conservative without changing a single idea." -Robert Anton Wilson

It's not that simple. It takes however long it takes for Liberals to take over things and implement all their stupid ideas. It is then that the Liberal is conservative (doesn't want change) and the Conservative becomes liberal.

Re:No, What's A Shame Is

[captainbarky]

$2500? I'm used to hearing close to $25000 for a decent patent att. to see the thing to completion.

Re:No, What's A Shame Is

[johansalk]

I have experience relevant to what you said since a few years ago I was in your situation, the lone inventor. Please allow me to tell you what I think about it.

First of all, if you thought the situation now is difficult, then just imagine what it would be like had the "barriers to entry" been, let's assume for a second, eliminated. What you'd then have is every "bright" kid and his "my-kid-is-bright" mom filing a patent; then really talk about patents that are too many and too broad. Now don't anyone tell me that's a good thing and creativity will spring up from it, nonsense. Even when you're someone with considerable postgrad expertise and have a creative routine you'd be amazed at how way too often it seems that every "original" thing you come up with had already been discussed and dissected at length in some volume somewhere in far more detail than you'd imagined, sometimes even tens of years ago. We're not in the stone age, prior art is vast now and any considerable invention these days requires a considerable expertise. Barriers to entry should be prohibitive enough to weed out the nonsense.

Second, if you thought filing a patent was costly, then I'll assume you've never tried to bring anything to market. The costs of patenting something pale in comparison to bringing a new thing to market. Now don't anyone tell me that having a patent will enable you to bring it to market, I'll say you've never been there. The truth is that even with a patent it is very difficult. Established companies have their set ways and own interests, they're fighting to survive against their competitors and can't be distracted by yet-another-invention from yet-another-weirdo, and even if you eventually persuade them that it's a good thing they're more likely to fight against you than for you. Also, most capital is very conservative and shies from anything untested in the marketplace. Useful does not always mean profitable. Answer me this, why should you be given exclusive rights to something that you can't bring to the people?

Then again, let's go back to basics. What was the intention of the patent law? It wasn't so someone from his bedroom can stalk the people over his "inventions", nor that more people invent more. The original intention of the patent law was so that those with immense trade expertise accumulated and kept in secret (ie, big business) would share that expertise with the people. The patent law wasn't intended so that some guy in his pajamas would tell us how something is done, it was intended so that experts from a big business would have an incentive to write a few documents describing how something is done and share them with the people. Had there been no patents then big business would still continue to invent, only that they'd do it in secret.

If you're going to have patents, then patenting needs to be prohibitive enough, otherwise you shouldn't have any patents at all.

There's a saying in filmmaking; if you can't persuade someone to finance your film, you shouldn't be making it. I think it applies here too.

Re:No, What's A Shame Is

[heinousjay]

I'm not saying that, exactly, and I'm not really defending the patent system, as such. I'm just saying I don't see how not allowing people to copy each other stifles innovation. I'm attacking the supposed problem from a slightly different angle, if you will.

Personally, I agree this is a little too obvious to patent. I think software patents in general need a full-on reformation (along with process patents).

On the other hand, I haven't seen this slowing anything down. Again, I have no evidence. This is strictly an opinion. (and anything that gets rid of shitty IE plugins is a good thing in my book. Lesser of two evils and all that)

Re:No, What's A Shame Is

[caspper69]

Then again, let's go back to basics. What was the intention of the patent law? It wasn't so someone from his bedroom can stalk the people over his "inventions", nor that more people invent more. The original intention of the patent law was so that those with immense trade expertise accumulated and kept in secret (ie, big business) would share that expertise with the people. The patent law wasn't intended so that some guy in his pajamas would tell us how something is done, it was intended so that experts from a big business would have an incentive to write a few documents describing how something is done and share them with the people. Had there been no patents then big business would still continue to invent, only that they'd do it in secret.

And I thought you were on the right track until I read this. You are a little off base. The patent system was not implemented to induce big business to share their ideas with the world. Sorry. Its purpose is to protect the people actually bringing something to market. It was made to prevent someone from simply stealing your ideas/work product/inventions, and to provide a legal framework in the event that someone did. It also effectively provides a period of freedom from competition, thus allowing an idea to be brought to life without the standard external pressures. These protections induce people (and entities) to invent and innovate. Imagine a system without such protections-- if anyone could steal your work product out from under you at any time and capitalize on it, no one would want to innovate for financial gain, thus substantially limiting both the scope and scale of our technical progress as a society.

The patent system does have the added benefit of making information public knowledge once the patent period expires, but believe me, this is most defnitely not its primary purpose (yes, I know patents are public knowledge anyway, but after the period expires, anyone can use that knowledge).

Re:No, What's A Shame Is

[Rac3r5]

If we go by the logic that you provided, then we shouldn't let everyone get an education.
We should also not let anyone create a web page, wouldn't we hate it if every Tom, Dick and Harry has a voice and is so creative that he just mimics something that someone has already done.
We should make a lot of commodities affordable because who knows what will happen if all these ppl purchasing power.
I can go on and on...
You sound like one of those Professors who only give out X number of A's and X amount of B's just to make his course seem hard.

The point the Parent who you replied to has, is that the patent system is broken vastly. Right now the patent system doesn't really benefit the individual innovator or the Businesses which they are supposed to protect but the lawyers. These are ppl who neither finance or innovate a given product, but seem to make the most out of it.
The patents given are so vague that they seem to cover a wide range of existing technologies.
Patents are given without a prototype.
Patents contain obfuscated language.
Patents issued seem overlap other patents issued.
Patents issued even though prior art exists.

Re:No, What's A Shame Is

[A non-mouse Cow Herd]

On the other hand, I haven't seen this slowing anything down. Again, I have no evidence. This is strictly an opinion.

Then perhaps you aren't familiar with how the industry works. If every developer actually made a good faith effort to ensure their software didn't violate any patents, software development would grind to a standstill.

The smaller companies (historically a major source of innovation) have to just cross their fingers and hope no one sues them. The larger ones waste a huge amount of effort building defensive patent portfolios, and even that doesn't stop patent trolls like Eolas.

It is also instructive to consider what the world would be like if we had the current system of software patents from day 1. Imagine a world where TCP/IP and HTML had been kept proprietary. The open development that spawned the Internet we know today would have been impossible. If AT&T had patented the basic techniques used in UNIX, there would be no linux, BSD, and probably no windows either.

Re:No, What's A Shame Is

[Anonymous Coward]

Same thing dude. Big business wouldn't share unless they had protection so they could make money off the invention before others copy it and try to sell it too. The patent shouldn't stop copying of inventions and incorporation of them into other products, but businesses need to recoup the cost of innovation FIRST - it's not fair for anyone otherwise. So, they license it out -- hopefully at a REASONABLE cost to others. Then eventually, the patent expires, and it's a free-for-all.

It's troubling that patents could be extended however, because all that means is company A will hold a deathgrip on patents, and that definitely stifles innovation for decades, especially if they decide to license it at exborbitant prices.

Re:No, What's A Shame Is

[johansalk]

You're mistaken, but it's understandable; it is a widespread mistake the idea that patents are there to protect your effort or investment and encourage people to invent. It is even further enforced sometimes by big business itself when it suits their needs, such as when they need the public on their side in some political issue by suggesting someone from the public may be a would-be inventor someday. It was further enforced on the other side by the liberals who had to phrase the legislation in words that are persuasive to the holders of trade secrets, and knowledge was always concentrated where wealth was. Nonsense. Nothing could've been more wrong. I used to think that long ago before I knew better. Read about the patent history, and replace patents with monopolies, and replace big business with its historical equivalent before the rise of the corporation. I can tell you never really got involved in patents. You're countering me with a common misconception.

Re:No, What's A Shame Is

[Jtheletter]

$2500? I'm used to hearing close to $25000 for a decent patent att. to see the thing to completion.

Appologies on the late reply from me because I just moved and my internet has been down. Anyway, yes, I concur, to do it right we're really talking about tens of thousands which I did not address but certainly is one of the (seems to me) absurdly high barriers to entry for a patent. My point in particular was that even a 'DIY' patent attempt will cost as much as $2500 and you really have little chance of being successful in getting a patent for that little. When the minimum amount is that much and failure is still mostly guaranteed we see that the system is starting to exclude people not based on the value of their idea but the size of their wallet. Innovation requires capital to be brought to market, true, but one should still be able to patent an original invention without having to take up a second job to do so.

Re:No, What's A Shame Is

[Jtheletter]

Thank you, you reiterated my points much better than I perhaps laid them down. I didn't come out and directly say it like you did but the lawyer problem was a big part of what I was referring to. If I as an inventor cannot get a decent patent for a reasonable amount of money without having to hire numerous third parties at great expense, then what is the point of the system other than to feed the lawyers' children? If I file a patent I should have some expectation of being able to incur only the patent office costs, I agree that those costs should be high enough to A) cover related expenses inherent in the system, such as making the database searchable and paying examiners for their time, and B) like your parent poster said - keep out the riffraff to a certain extent (i.e. don't waste the patent officers' time by applying for anything you think of without even searching prior art first yourself). But for it to cost me thousands to tens of thousands of dollars in consulting and legal fees just to use the system itself speaks to the problems that have come about through abuse of the system, neglect by the legislature (updating with the times), and purposeful stifling of innovation by the big players who can afford to file thousands of patents to keep the little guy out of the game entirely.

Millions for defence but not one penny to a patent

[Jerry]

or something like that.

As much as I dislike Microsoft I am glad they told those patent lizards to take a hike.

User experience

[vettemph]

If this tool licker gave an ass about the user experience he would give this phoney patent to "the internet".

For once in my life I agree with MS.

Re:User experience

[Jaseoldboss]

From the article: Microsoft is offering a one-time "compatibility patch" that will be deployed like a hotfix to let users turn off the changes through June.

Wouldn't it be funny if the mandatory upgrade just sets a registry key called EOLAS_Compatibility=1 which anyone can override. Then EOLAS would have to persue all users that set it to 0 for infringing their patent instead!

Re:User experience

[sulfur_lad]

THAT would be comic gold. Seriously, this patent stuff is getting rediculous. Blackberry's surprise "hey guys, we had the idea for a portable email phone thingie first!" lawsuit is another prime example. Okay, you told someone you had this idea. Did you do anything with it besides putting the piece of paper with obtuse language and a number on it in a filing cabinet to gather dust for 12 years? It's one thing if you had this great idea, made a product, and someone else with more money comes along and duplicates it with better marketing, putting you out. The filing cabinet approach has got to go. I patent the wheel. Your wheelbarrow supplier owes me now. booo.

I hope this one is over with soon...

[Dr.Dubious DDQ]

This whole case makes me feel violated. Not only is it a patent-troll case, but it's one that makes me side with Microsoft on something. I feel so unclean...

Re:I hope this one is over with soon...

[sulfur_lad]

the patent thing is rediculous, but so is the apple/ms/linux/atari 5800/c64 is better so we cheer for anything bad that happens to the ones we don't like as much argument. It's not a sports team! If you don't like it, don't use it; and the predominant population here (I think) has done just that and uses linux instead. However, the marketing dept on this floor would disagree, and the designer folks on this floor would disagree a third time. The fact that it's MS should be irrelevant; it's a cash-grab attempt. It's legalized extortion, no matter how successful the victim.

Re:I hope this one is over with soon...

[Grishnakh]

This whole case makes me feel violated. Not only is it a patent-troll case, but it's one that makes me side with Microsoft on something. I feel so unclean...

It doesn't bother me; I'm glad to see MS get bitten in the ass over a silly patent, and I hope it happens again and again. It's the same kind of thing that happened to RIM. Both these companies were proponents of stupid software patents, but then when someone else uses this ridiculous system against them, they complain.

But even worse, you don't see them lobbying for any reasonable changes to the patent system so everyone can avoid this silliness in the future.

So as far as I'm concerned, they had it coming.

Re:I hope this one is over with soon...

[Anonymous Coward]

another AC posted this: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2005/m ar05/03-10PatentReform.mspx

so learn more before you speak again.

Re:I hope this one is over with soon...

[Grishnakh]

As I said to the other poster, this action of theirs, while positive, seems to have only come up after their legal troubles with Eolas began. Before that, while they were probably already battling legal patents, they probably didn't think they'd get hurt that bad, but now they've realized they were wrong.

It's too bad they didn't push for this much earlier.

You don't say

[supra]

> Eolas Chief Operating Officer Mark Swords called on the software maker to purchase a patent license instead of worsening the browsing experience.
Gee, who would've guessed they're interesting in selling a patent license...

Hopefully MS' actions here will put a damper on all those ludicrous patents and their holders to collect.
I hope Eolas spent a bundle on litigation and gets nothing in return. That'll teach them.

Re:You don't say

[Anonymous Coward]

Eolas Chief Operating Officer Mark Swords called on the software maker to purchase a patent license instead of worsening the browsing experience.

His compassion towards the end users of the world is... whelming.

Re:You don't say

[supra]

Of course they're going to respond from a perspective that is customer-centric. They certainly won't win any points by stating the same goal from their shareholders' perspective.
I think it was yesterday I read an article where the movie studios and theaters were arguing about the release time of movies to the theaters vs rental. And both ends cited "improved customer satisfaction" as their goal. Yeah, right...

Confused? Yes, I am.

[misfit13b]

This text parses horribly.

"Some guy's suit forced MS to make changes of their own choosing which will cause web developers to change their architecture which are a dissapointment, yet strengthen MS's case."

What changes are the dissapointment? What the hell are you talking about? How about a link or two, or using a word other than "change"?

Yeah, I know. -1, Offtopic

Is this a bad thing?

[hudson007]

Is making ActiveX harder to use a bad thing? "By Microsoft's own admission, IE users will only be able to interact with Microsoft ActiveX controls loaded in certain Web pages after manually activating their user interfaces by clicking on it or using the Tab and Enter keys."

Re:Is this a bad thing?

[Shmooze]

Although doesn't Microsoft's own documentation say that you can use Javascript (in an external script file) to add the or tags to the document using document.write() (or something like that) and that the "click-to-activate" thing is circumvented by doing so? In which case, isn't the whole case pretty much a waste of time anyway?

Re:Is this a bad thing?

[hal9000(jr)]

Is making ActiveX harder to use a bad thing?

Yeah, it is. Forcing users to manually approve every control just reinforces the reactive "Click OK" mentality that enables other bad shit to happen.

Re:Is this a bad thing?

[AngelofDeath-02]

While I know this won't happen, it would be nice if web developers would move away from ActiveX because of this. That way the customer wouldn't have to just "Click OK" for stuff to work ...

I can dream though.

Re:Is this a bad thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Redundant!

Re:Is this a bad thing?

[jbengt]

That's exactly what I was thinking. Automatically activated items is one of the main vectors for exploits.
Another poster said that requiring manually clicking will just get people into the habit of moindlessly clicking (They don't already do that?). But how in the heck could automatic activation be better?
Hopefully, this leads to less use of Active X in web sites. Use of Active X just means I'll skip that site, since I'm not using MS Windows (except at work). There's enough other choices that it doesn't really bother me, personally anyway.

Re:Is this a bad thing?

[dracphelan]

It depends on the number of pages and sites you have to modify. Since this also pertains to how IE handles Flash, my company is looking at over 1000 pages that all have to be edited on several different sites. Since that is me and one other person, we ar looking at least a week of wasted time on this.

Re:Is this a bad thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

They don't have to click OK to load the ActiveX control. The control loads per normal. The difference is that now in order to interact with the control you have to select the control first. So the media player will load and the video will start to buffer and play, but if you want to pause the video or adjust the volume in the embedded player you have to click on the player as a whole (which displays a focus rectangle around the entire control) and then you can click on the constituent buttons.

It's not a big deal. Minor nuisance at best. Pretty much everything continues to work, however.

Re:Is this a bad thing?

[brandonbradley]

While I despise ActiveX as a whole there is also the reality that all the plugins in IE are now done with ActiveX, which would include things like flash, video, etc are run via activeX. So this will potentially confuse users of millions of sites as they weill not have to "activate" something that they never did before. Interestingly this will also affect Google Video as they are using flash video capabilities.

Asks why change?

[nolife]

What I read...
Why would they change? They should just pay us and our layers instead. If they don't pay, we may actually have to take a risk and develop something based on our patent or we will go broke. So yes America, and all that is reading our press release, Microsoft is bad, not us. Repeat that 10 times to as many people as you know and it will eventually become the truth.

Dont you mean ....

[Llamakiller-4]

Dont you mean "strengthens Eolas' case" ?
Lk4

Re:Dont you mean ....

[Penguinoflight]

I think the assertion is that by Microsoft recoding IE, they are strengthening their own case that Eolas is a patent lizzard. If they simply paid the money, web developers would still be bad off, because they'd have to pay more for MS development accesss. The devs involved know what is going on, and they see Microsoft's case as stronger now.

Out to get MS

[everphilski]

If this tool licker gave an ass about the user experience he would give this phoney patent to "the internet".

Eolas has said before they are just out to get Microsoft. They have said they won't come after Mozilla. All they care about is money. Regardless, Microsoft is doing the right thing given the position. Make the change, don't license to a crappy patent.

Re:Out to get MS

[MightyMartian]

MS is doing the only thing that can be done under the current system other than giving into blackmail. While I have no faith in MS not trying the same stunt if it sees Open Source starting to erode its dominance, at the moment they are the victim of an utterly meritless patent.

Re:Out to get MS

[Grishnakh]

MS is doing the only thing that can be done under the current system other than giving into blackmail. While I have no faith in MS not trying the same stunt if it sees Open Source starting to erode its dominance, at the moment they are the victim of an utterly meritless patent.

The way I see it, they're being hoist by their own petard, and they should absolutely be paying license fees for this patent. If they don't agree with this, and think this is a "meritless" patent, then they should be using their power and money and lobbying to have software patents limited or eliminated.

Until now, MS has been a proponent of software patents. Even now, after it's biting them in the ass, I still don't see them working for any positive change with the USPTO, even though they certainly have the ability to do so, perhaps more than anyone.

Re:Out to get MS

[Anonymous Coward]

Do a quick google on "Microsoft patent reform". First page you'll get is this.

Re:Out to get MS

[Grishnakh]

Definitely very encouraging, and I wish them success. But it's interesting that this seems to have only come after the Eolas threat emerged.

Litigation Positions

[digitaldc]

Microsoft is apparently of the position that this [IE modification] helps their litigation position.

My God I think he has stumbled upon something! I see now that most everything driving business- and further- the world is based on helping one's own litigation position, how can this be?

Interesting comments, so far.

[DaveM753]

I'm seeing a lot of these comments side with Microsoft here, stating that Eolas is patent trolling. But, if Linux were to really take off, don't you think Microsoft would start filing a bunch of infringement lawsuits against Linux (or other F-OSS), in the same way Eolas did to Microsoft?

Re:Interesting comments, so far.

[Sneftel]

Probably, and then the same people here would in that instance not side with Microsoft. None of the comments here are "Microsoft is in the right here, and therefore we must agree with everything they do forever". It IS possible to support a position rather than an entity.

Re:Interesting comments, so far.

[CottonEyedJoe]

With the likes of IBM and Novell behind linux and others such as Apple dependant on linux related technologies (webkit, gcc, etc.). Microsoft may not want to go slinging patents willy nilly in Linux's direction just yet. They may well find a few directed back at them.

Re:Interesting comments, so far.

[aqfire]

I'm seeing a lot of these comments side with Microsoft here, stating that Eolas is patent trolling. But, if Linux were to really take off, don't you think Microsoft would start filing a bunch of infringement lawsuits against Linux (or other F-OSS), in the same way Eolas did to Microsoft?

Yes, probably, but clearly the high ground is to side with the company that is fighting against patent-trolling lawsuits. In this case, ironically, it's Microsoft.

Re:Interesting comments, so far.

[Locke2005]

But, if Linux were to really take off, don't you think Microsoft would start filing a bunch of infringement lawsuits against Linux (or other F-OSS), in the same way Eolas did to Microsoft? And OpenSource developers would respond by modifying the alledgedly infringing code as soon as it was pointed out to no longer infringe, much as Microsoft has done. And your point is? Clearly Microsoft is doing the right thing in this case, and still being criticized for it. I despise Microsoft as much as anyone, but in this specific case we need to give the devil his due.

Re:Interesting comments, so far.

[Anonymous Coward]

If and when that happens, be certain /. will complain.

Till then, MS is in the right on this one

Re:Interesting comments, so far.

[Anonymous Coward]

It isn't ironic. Microsoft has never used patents aggressively. They prefer to manipulate the market through bundling, discounts, and inertia.

Re:Interesting comments, so far.

[Kelson]

Entirely possible. And if that happened, most people here would be siding with Linux in that instance.

Patent abuse is still patent abuse, even when it's aimed at someone you dislike.

Re:Interesting comments, so far.

[szembek]

Probably yes, but at least Microsoft creates something. Eolas doesn't do shit other than patent vague ideas. At least that's all I can see that they do from their website. While I'm opposed to most software patents, the ones I am most opposed to are the ones which are never even used by the company that filed for them.

Re:Interesting comments, so far.

[Omnifarious]

They almost certainly would, and they'd be wrong. I hate stupid patent tricks even more than I despise Microsoft, but I do not doubt that Microsoft will use them if they think they can get away with it.

Re:Interesting comments, so far.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a waste of time to point out an obvious distinction to someone. If they were capable of understanding it, they'd already know it. The average Slashdotter's brain simply cannot handle the added complexity you're trying to introduce here, either because of an IQ problem, or an emotional problem.

Re:Interesting comments, so far.

[jafiwam]

Uhm. No.

The KKK has a right to free speech just like you or I or anybody else in this thread. Defending their right to free speech protects the rights ALL to have free speech. Even if they are a bunch of bastards and what they say is abhorrent.

So defending Microsoft when they are in the right, or are standing up to some lawyer bullshit is not a contradiction, it is simply the lack of hypocracy that you seem to want to expect in Slashdotters.

Re:Interesting comments, so far.

[metlin]

Entities, like human beings, are subject to good, bad, evil, mistakes and what not.

Sometimes, Microsoft can be an ass and you'd hate Microsoft and other times, Microsoft could do something nice that would make you side with them.

But most of the time, just like most people, they're just trying to get along and do what's best for them.

So, sometimes those actions are in line with what the Slashdot crowd perceives to be "right" and sometimes it's not.

Re:Interesting comments, so far.

[ad0gg]

Not in america. Just look at politics.

Did they say "shame"...

[Anonymous Coward]

or "sham"?

Fools

[YrWrstNtmr]

There is no court order forcing Microsoft to do anything. Anything that is being done is of Microsoft's own choosing,'

You sued them, and apparently won, resulting in two paths of action for Microsoft. Stop the infringing activity, or pay you to be allowed to continue.

They indeed made a choice. Too bad it wasn't the one you wanted.

But, But, MS paid $$$K to SCO for use of theirs...

[Anonymous Coward]

So why is it so hard to pay for this patent license, huh?

Re:Confused? Yes, I am.

[hal9000(jr)]

You can find the changes Activating ActiveX Controls.

Seems like some simple work arounds for newly developed applications. Hate to retrofit all the existing stuff out there.

the end of activex?

[radical_dementia]

I think perhaps one reason they are avoiding buying a patent license is because they are planning on doing away with activex. I've already heard the xmlhttprequest used for Ajax will be built in to IE7 and not as an activex control. Its possible other things like Flash and Acrobat will do the same.

Re:the end of activex?

[mattyrobinson69]

xmlhttprequest is a javascript object that was implemented as an activex control. unfortunately, since ms did-away-with/never-had netscape compatible plugins, ie's plugins all have to be activex.

they couldn't build flash or acrobat into ie, as theyre built by different companies

Re:the end of activex?

[I'm Don Giovanni]

Even if IE still used netscape's plugin architecture, it wouldn't matter. Any plug-in architecture that handles EMBED, OBJECT, or APPLET tags by loading the appropriate plugin when necessary is subject to the patent.

Re:the end of activex?

[AReilly]

I can't be bothered to track down the patent, but if your description is accurate, then a number of solutions seem obvious:

* Pre-load the appropriate plug-ins (that have already been installed as appropriate), so that the browser+plugin just has the necessary functionaity at boot time, or

* Run the dynamically started "plug-in" as a separate executable, with an appropriate display/comms protocol between it and the browser, just the way X-windows and MS's own OLE has done for years.

I'm sure that others can come up with other work-arounds, if necessary. Personlally, I think that a separate installation process in which I pre-approve of particular sorts of plug-in functionality (java, flash, PDF would probably do me) would be vastly better than the whole Active-X miazma.

PR Stunt

[moochfish]

Sounds like a PR stunt trying to make MS look bad for going around their patent instead of paying royalties. He already got 500 million; he's upset he's not getting even more.

At least this will keep the other browsers safer from further litigation down the road. If MS had bent over backwards and paid, every other browser that ever gained any market share would have been next in line to pay retroactive royalties. Now that MS just changed the rules of the HTML world (as usual), it's not crazy to think other browser vendors won't be ready to follow just to avoid having to pay the costly lesson that MS had to pay.

Useful for firefox?

[Anonymous Coward]

Those of us out there who advocate Firefox should take this as a great opportunity.
Currently there are only 186 hits in google for the term "Click to activate and use this control".

If everyone here with a blog or similar puts up a post with that line, and says something to the effect that 'the best solution for this problem is to download firefox, as webmasters are never going to update all the sites out there', there's got to be a whole new batch of potential converts who get auto-updated and then think "Oh noes, what is this, I'll google..."

Just a thought.

Re:Useful for firefox?

[Anonymous Coward]

Those of us out there who advocate Firefox should take this as a great opportunity.

I don't recommend jumping on that. You're going to be seen as forcing users to change. That strategy never works and always backfires. It will turn into, 'Eolas is forcing me to use Firefox because they are greedy'.

Eventually, this will erode any goodwill Firefox may gain. The webmasters will change their pages to work with IE, and the users will return to IE with a dislike for 'those greedy bastards who work with Firefox'.

Re:Useful for firefox?

[Bert64]

Forcing people to use particular programs doesn't seem to do microsoft any harm... Their marketshare would be a fraction of what it is now if people weren't forced by proprietary formats, apis, protocols or whatever else.

Re:Useful for firefox?

[PietjeJantje]

I just filed a patent on the invention of "Clicking to activate and use a control".

$500,000,000 has my name all written over it :) :) :)

So he's disappointed...

[rsborg]

That Microsoft chooses not to control their own destiny at the cost of the consumer's experience?

How completlely predictably stupid. This chapter in the ever-continuing saga of "idea ownership" that was brought about by the terrible terrible legal precedent in 1998 (State Street Bank & Trust Co. v. Signature Financial Group, Inc), is marking a major decline in both the freedom of the market as well as potentially, freedom of the individuals who participate in that market.

I'm very lacking of pity for Microsoft, IBM and other patent-warchest-holding companies... but this insanity with the submarine patents (esp. on business ideas) has got to stop.

Patent scum

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm dissapointed this guy doesn't die in a horrible gardening accident.

I'm a Flash developer, this means that now my clients will have to have their customers click a button everytime they view my sites. This looks really unprofessional.

Re:Patent scum

[Anonymous Coward]

What a coincidence! I'm dissapointed there aren't more Flash developers dying in horrible gardening accidents.

Re:Patent scum

[I'm Don Giovanni]

You realize you can recode your sites to use JavaScript load the Flash objects from an external file, right, and thus avoid the "having to click a button" issue?
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/?url=/workshop/a uthor/dhtml/overview/activating_activex.asp

So this is a payday for you. Your clients will pay you to recode the sites; and the recoding is pretty trivial, so it's almost like getting money for free. :-)

Re:Patent scum

[Bert64]

Hopefully this will discourage the use of flash, and especially flash-only websites.

Search engines can't search inside flash
Some systems have no flash plugin (macromedia are too stubborn to compile 64bit versions)
A lot of companies have a policy of not allowing flash
Flash files are large, and load slowly on slow connections (and lots of people use slow mobile connections nowadays)

I hate the attitude of most flash developers, who think that everyone runs windows as administrator and on a fast connection, many a time i have been told to go and buy a windows box by a flash developer when i complained that their site wouldn't display. It's nice to see their blind obedience to microsoft come to bite them in the ass.

Re:Patent scum

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm right there with you man. Time to get rid of that bathwater, regardless of how many goddamn babies there are in it. Flash is capable of producing bad web experiences, so it's just gotta go.

ps: what tiny fraction of systems will Flash not run on? I think there's even a version for Solaris, for christs sake.

Re:Patent scum

[Anonymous Coward]

What a coincidence! I'm offering horrible gardening accidents at a discounted price this week.

Re:Patent scum

[BugDoomBug]

"Search engines can't search inside flash"

Wasn't there a note about the new google crawler being able to possibly do this? Also, I hate the flash ads as much as the next guy, but I have also enjoyed countless hours at NewGrounds for years.

Re:Patent scum

[moochfish]

Payday? Free? I don't think so.

Let's say I was a consultant doing web work:

1. If I do something for a client that later breaks, they will attribute it to the quality of my work, even if I explain it's Microsoft's fault. If they were web savvy enough to understand the distinction, they would not need someone like me to do their website. So that means this fiasco makes me look bad, not MS.

2. Some clients will not notice this issue. It will be an embarassing or otherwise annoying problem that one of THEIR clients will eventually point out. My client will look bad. Subsequently, I will look bad. This means I have to actively go out and seek my old clients to update my work before their clients/users see the problem. I can't walk up to a client, tell them something broke overnight, that it's not my fault, and I need to charge them to fix it. This brings up (1) in that it makes them question the quality of my work.

3. I can't charge very much for what will literally be 1 minute of work. But I don't want to work for free. But, as I pointed out in (2), I may be the one that approaches them and points out the "new" problem (new is in quotes because that's how they will see it). This puts me in an extremely tough position.

This is going to be a headache for anybody who has a client with a site that will be breaking in the near future. Good luck explaining it to somebody who doesn't understand web technologies (aka all your clients).

Good thing I got out of the site building business a long time ago.

Re:Patent scum

[Bert64]

There are old versions for solaris/sparc, but never for solaris/x86.
There are no 64bit versions whatsoever, so amd64 users are forced to run a 32bit browser on windows/linux, most end up running a full 32bit os thus negating the benefits of a 64bit cpu.
There are no native versions for BSD, bsd users have to run a browser under linux emulation.
I don't think there is a native for OSX/x86 yet.
The nokia internet tablet doesn't support flash, nor do many similar small devices.
Even if you have a supported os, you need recent versions in order to use the latest flash plugins, lots of people use older os's and modern versions of mozilla happily.
If you have anything even slightly obscure (linux/alpha, linux/sparc, irix etc) you can't use flash, but you can browse pretty much anything else (mozilla/konqueror exist for these platforms at the very least, and java)

Re:Millions for defence but not one penny to a pat

[iminplaya]

Let's hope we can do the same when Microsoft starts going after Linux over patents. And you can bet they will if Linux puts a sigificant dent in their cash flow.

Microsoft can get away with it.

[Anonymous Coward]

With Apple having lost 50% of their market share under Steve Jobs and other operating systems struggling on the desktop, Microsoft can pretty much do whatever they want. Joe user has proven time and time again that when Bill Gates calls the tune, the user must dance.

Don't Cheer for MS

[algae]

It seems like by taking this action, Microsoft is actually *reenforcing* the validity of software patents. Yes, bully to them for refusing to pay licensing, but by dropping the disputed technology, Microsoft is tacitly admitting that the patent is valid.

Of course that makes total sense, giving the MS is patenting software techniques left and right, and has reserved the right to sue Free Software distributors over it. If they can get e.g. RedHat to devote person-hours to removing patented algorithms from their distribution, then that's time and money that they're essentially forcing RedHat to throw out the window.

Re:Don't Cheer for MS

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft is tacitly admitting that the patent is valid.

What else could they do? The judge already said the patent was valid. Only a fool argues with a judge.

And Microsoft is doing with Eolas exactly what Linux will do if Microsoft claims a patent on something - engineer around the patent. See, that's the thing with computer programs, there are as many ways to write a program as there are programmers.

And this is pretty much how business operates in America. A friend of mine worked at a plant that made doodads and geegaws (physical, non-electrical gizmos). He said the boss would give him a competitor's product and ask "can you make one of these?" It didn't matter whether there was a patent or not, that's why they had lawyers. If a judge told them to stop, sometimes they could make the same gizmo out of, say aluminum instead of steel and no longer be infringing the patent.

What do you call 200 lawyers at the bottom of the sea?

Re:Don't Cheer for MS

[jfengel]

The Supreme Court pretty much said it for them. All Microsoft is doing at this point is living with the reality that the court handed them. They don't like it, but there aren't any legal recourses left.

Re:Don't Cheer for MS

[Anonymous Coward]

And what choice, precisely, does MS have that would NOT reinforce software patents? Now that the courts have already decided for Eolas in this instance.

Seems to me their choices are 1) pay Eolas for a license or 2) circumvent the technology like they're doing or, maybe, 3) get a huge fine for contempt of court or failing to heed a court decision or some such (IANAL, obviously). Either of the first 2 could be said to 'reinforce software patents' and the 3rd is just plain stupid from a business perspective.

Re:Don't Cheer for MS

[Bert64]

Argue with the judge? that's exactly what microsoft does, and they drag it out as long as they can... They did it in the US antitrust trial, and now they're doing it in Europe.
They shouldn't be allowed to argue or negotiate their punishment once the court has found against them, they should simply be punished, and for that sentence to be carried out as it would with an individual who was found guilty by a court.

Re:Don't Cheer for MS

[Grishnakh]

And what choice, precisely, does MS have that would NOT reinforce software patents? Now that the courts have already decided for Eolas in this instance.

This is easy: they could use their considerable power and money to lobby legislators to finally fix this broken patent system. No, this probably won't save them from the short-term pains of having to pay Eolas and engineer around this patent, but it would fix the system in the future for everyone.

But instead, they probably want to keep the system broken so they can later use software patents in similarly evil ways against their competitors (esp. open source).

Re:Don't Cheer for MS

[Angst Badger]

but by dropping the disputed technology, Microsoft is tacitly admitting that the patent is valid.

I don't see that. If Microsoft is admitting anything, it's that the courts decided against them and now they have to abide by the law. While that is unusual for Microsoft, it's not really something you can complain about. The patent is valid because the courts decided it is. You can argue that the patent laws are stupid, or that the presiding judge was a dunderhead, and though I will be the last to contradict you, that's just how the legal system works.

To be fair to the companies that are actually producing something, I don't think any of them are thrilled with the unintended consequences of the patent system as it is applied to software, and they are becoming less thrilled with each new suit from patent farms like Eolas. However, they have effectively painted themselves into a corner, so don't expect the system to change until it becomes so onerous for ordinary consumers that there's political consensus to change the law. I think that day will come, but I wouldn't hold my breath.

Re:Don't Cheer for MS

[Frank T. Lofaro Jr.]

Choice 4) Buy out Eolas

Re:Don't Cheer for MS

[algae]

OK, I guess I wasn't clear on the main point I was trying to make. I think this is evidence that Microsoft intends to use the same techniques against other companies to force them either to pay licensing fees to MS, or to waste person-hours working around the disputed technology.

Like another person in this thread said, if MS were to come after RedHat with the same patent-trolling, then RedHat would simply work around the dispute rather than paying fees. What's being missed is that *having to do that* *still* costs RedHat, in the form of development resources that could be used for X instead of re-writing working code to avoid litigation.

This far, and no farther.

[bigtallmofo]

If every patent victim were to utter those words to the person or corporation attempting to shake them down, the incentive to perpetrate such frauds would be gone.

The problem is that corporations like Microsoft typically have a short-term mentality that tells them, "If we litigate, it will cost X. If we pay them off, it will cost Y." They then pay off the con artists if X > Y. Unfortunately this doesn't take into consideration the fact that this rewards bad behavior and leads to the paying of infinite more Ys in the future.

I applaud Microsoft's decision and I hope Eolas goes down in flames.

Re:This far, and no farther.

[lowe0]

"If every patent victim were to utter those words to the person or corporation attempting to shake them down, the incentive to perpetrate such frauds would be gone."

Reduced, maybe, but not gone. The threat of litigation is very real, and it's not going to be hard to frame the case as big-bad-Microsoft vs. poor little Eolas. Boom, instant jackpot.

Worsening the user experience?

[Andy Dodd]

These changes sound a lot like a variant of Flashblock to me.

Yeah, that's right, these changes that "worsen the user experience" are almost identical to the functionality of a rather popular Firefox extension.

I consider requiring user input to run ActiveX controls to be a Good Thing. Thank you Eolas for finally forcing MS to make drive-by malware autoinstallation more difficult.

Re:Worsening the user experience?

[LiquidCoooled]

No they don't.

Flashblock stops everything until you click, this just stops the user interactivity.
Movies and audio still play, code still runs, you just can't click pause or zoom or anything without first click to activate.

Worst of all, if the control is loaded dynamically during a page refresh (with onsite script) a wonderful message comes up saying "click to activate" (or similar)
The annoying part is theres no option to cancel.

Re:Worsening the user experience?

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish MS could make it easier for ActiveX controls to run, because people like myself feed their families with the money of IE users who fill up their PC with malware. :(

How is anyone going to know they are about to get a million free iPods by shocking the monkey if they have to click on stuff to see the monkey :(

Inconvenience?

[smooth wombat]

He said the IE modifications spelled out by Microsoft, which will reportedly disrupt the way online advertising and streaming media content is delivered over the Internet, is an inconvenience users could do without.

Not having ads shoved down your throat is an inconvenience? To whom, the users? That's a good thing!

Me thinks Swords is really reaching to say a disruption of online advertising is a bad thing.

So, when's the lawsuit against Mozilla?

[Anonymous Coward]

After all, Firefox extensions work almost exactly the same way ActiveX controls do. When is Eolas planning on sueing the Mozilla Foundation for ripping off their patents?

Oh, that's right, they're just after money, and while Mozilla might be "raking in millions from Google" they just aren't quite the attractive target Microsoft is. What was I thinking.

Not only Microsoft

[ray-auch]

It isn't just the microsoft fee.

Since IE is (unfortunately) the defacto standard browser, others (if they infringe at all) will follow the lead, and Microsoft will take all the pain of getting web developers to change to cope with the changes.

The Eolas guy is annoyed because MS routed around his toll bridge, and now everyone else will see the way to go round too, and all his future revenues just evaporated.

Re:Not only Microsoft

[errxn]

...others (if they infringe at all) will follow the lead...

The only problem with this is that Eolas has freely admitted that they are not going to go after any other browser, only IE. As Mozilla, et. al gain popularity and market share, the possibility exists that we'll have a further fracturing of an already splintered HTML/Javascript implementation across browsers.

One question I have is whether Microsoft has any sort of case against Eolas for discriminatory behavior or extortion, since Eolas has admittedly singled them out. Obviously, IANAL.

Then again, there's always the wishful thinking that Eolas will realize that they're never gonna get a penny out of their predatory patent, give up, and release it to the public domain. Yeah, wishful thinking.

Re:Not only Microsoft

[geoffspear]

I doubt it. If Bill Gates and a homeless guy were equally responsible for a car accident, do you think the victim could be accused of extortion because they decided not to try suing the homeless guy?

What could they possibly hope to gain by suing open source developers? Mozilla was a lot less likely to buy a license than Microsoft was.

Re:Not only Microsoft

[bsd4me]

The only problem with this is that Eolas has freely admitted that they are not going to go after any other browser, only IE. As Mozilla, et. al gain popularity and market share, the possibility exists that we'll have a further fracturing of an already splintered HTML/Javascript implementation across browsers.

The simplest way to implement the workaround just moves some HTML code into an external Javascript file that uses document.write() instead. You would have to go out of your way to make this incompatible with other browsers. The better solutions that are already available take this a step further to add feature detection and alternate content. IMHO, users are going to get a better experience as a result of this.

Re:Not only Microsoft

[Bill Dog]

The only problem with this is that Eolas has freely admitted that they are not going to go after any other browser, only IE.

Unless they've delivered to all other browser makers legal documents forfeiting the right to sue them for infringing this patent, that promise means nothing. IANAL but I doubt this could even be done in a legally valid way unless some consideration was involved.

Re:Not only Microsoft

[ray-auch]

I doubt it. If Bill Gates and a homeless guy were equally responsible for a car accident, do you think the victim could be accused of extortion because they decided not to try suing the homeless guy?


No, but this is about letting the homeless guy keep on running over them afterwards.

In which case maybe Gates can argue down the damages because if being runover was so bad, how come they let the other guy carry on doing it...

Re:Not only Microsoft

[OnlineAlias]

I have just been dealing with the ramifications "fix" for several thousand users.

I BLOWS ME AWAY that Microsoft gets hammered on a stupid patent and then who has to pay? Not Microsoft, not Eolas, but ME! How can they justify taking features away that we bought fully funtioning a long time ago? They have also buried this patch in a Cumulative Internet Explorer Security Update, which to me, amounts to puting a "rider" on a bill that you know won't pass on its own.

Microsoft's smug spin on it is even more infuriating, their tech docs mention "we will give you time to test this patch out, then after your code is fixed..blah blah". WHAT? My code was fine until you broke it...arrrg...

Re:Not only Microsoft

[pyite]

You're being very shortsighted. So Microsoft can purchase a license to use Eolas' patent. Who pays for that? The consumer. It's a lesser of two evils question. The Eolas CEO comes off kind of smug, so I'm glad they're not buying a license from them.

Re:Not only Microsoft

[OnlineAlias]

Respectfully, I disagree. In a world without monopolies, if Microsoft purchased the license then we as consumers keep the feature. We do no more work and this issue costs us nothing. However, Microsoft may have to pass the costs on to the consumer on subsequent sales of its product, reducing Microsoft's market share. That is the way it should work.

An analogy would be that Ford sells me a car, but infringes on the patent for windshield wipers. Ford then issues a recall which subsequently disables your wipers. It is no different.

In this monopoly environment, where (apparently) Microsoft can do anything it wants, there is nothing the consumer can do but eat the cost entirely and directly.

Re:Not only Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

"It's clear that the ruling of infringement stands. We are going through an appeals process on some very narrow issues," Swords said, referring to the August 2003 jury verdict that Microsoft must pay $521 million for infringing on Eolas' patent.
--
Changing the browser now does not relieve Microsoft from US$521M verdict. Eolas wants to settle, IMHO, because they realize the retrial will not go in their favor (ie. activex and other embed technology runs as separate thread in the browser program, and thus it is not an external application as described in the last published notice of allowance).

Why is Microsoft changing the browser now? There is no court order forcing them. Is it to avoid potential future royalties in the event they are found guilt of violating the patent in the retrial? Everything I have read makes me think they could win a retrial unless they use lawyers without a clue, for representation. Makes no sense. Something else is afoot. Seems more likely an end run against potential liability claims for bad software (example: don't blame IE, the user said it was OK and thus assumes responsibility), or something like that.

Re:Not only Microsoft

[Hoi Polloi]

With the $500,000,000+ jury Powerball winnings they got I don't see how future earnings would be a concern. Why play the lottery when you can play the courts?

Re:Not only Microsoft

[Columcille]

There is a difference between market domination and monopoly. You'd be better saying, "In a world where Microsoft doesn't dominate the market..." but in such a world things would be even worse, as far as this lawsuit is concerned. As has been noted, EOLAS is going after MSFT because MSFT has the biggest pockets. The assumption seems to be that if MSFT didn't dominate, MSFT would still be the only ones targetted and customers could switch to other companies that weren't effected by this lawsuit. But if the pockets were all the same size, EOLAS would likely go after a lot more pockets, causing about the same amount of friction on the consumer.

Re:Not only Microsoft

[torokun]

Eolas is making a good amount just from MS's infringement. Sure, they'd love to make money on a license too, but they also don't want people thinking that they refused to license to MS out of spite or something...

It's true that they want MS to pay for any license, but it's also true that MS could surely afford one, and simply are refusing to take one. MS chose to trade off the purchase of a license for an annoyance to their users... If I were they, I might choose to annoy my users less, especially if I had 50 bil in the bank... ;)

Re:Not only Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

"An analogy would be that Ford sells me a car, but infringes on the patent for windshield wipers. Ford then issues a recall which subsequently disables your wipers. It is no different."

Well.. if your wipers didn't work, Ford would fix them so that they did during the recall. Just as Microsoft issues patches. Now if you build a whole infrastructure around those original wipers that no longer works, Ford doesn't need to work around your design to cater to your wiper needs. They just need the basic function to work as agreed originally.

Re:Not only Microsoft

[monkeydo]

Why are you mad at Microsoft instead of the bozo's suing for infringement of the stupid patent? I thought software patents were teh bad. I guess that's only until they are used against M$.

Re:Not only Microsoft

[Minwee]

"The only problem with this is that Eolas has freely admitted that they are not going to go after any other browser, only IE."

That and four dollars will get you a cup of coffee, but it's still not legally binding.

"But you didn't sue us last year!" isn't a terribly effective defense.

Re:Not only Microsoft

[saleenS281]

And you actually believe that he wouldn't go after mozilla becauase he claimed so? Have any legal document liberating mozilla from a lawsuit? Please, he'll go after everyone possible if it means making more money. He just started with MS because they own the webbrowser market.

Re:Not only Microsoft

[ray-auch]

They haven't "got" it yet. It is still on appeal (AFAIK), and probably will be for a few years more.

Moreover the $500+M was just for three years (1998 - 2001) so the stakes are $100m+ per year future earnings.

I'm pretty sure MS would have settled for a one-off few tens of million or so a few years ago. Me, I'd have taken that and gone - ten mil now or maybe a lot more but years down the line when I'm too old to enjoy it ? I'll cash out now thanks.

Obviously the Eolas guy has a more long term view... Risks losing everything though. MS is being asked to pay 2.5% of the gross windows revenues in the damages award. There is no way they can pay (set precedent) that much to just one patent troll. So they will fight - and I reckon they (MS) scent victory now with the USPTO invalidating the patent.

Re:Not only Microsoft

[ozmanjusri]

Why are you mad at Microsoft instead of the bozo's suing for infringement of the stupid patent?

• Eolas bozos are bad.
  • Get mad at Eolas bozos is good

• Software patents are bad
  • Get mad at Software patents is good

• Microsoft are bad.
  • Get mad at Microsoft is good

• Microsoft customer/victims are good.
  • Get mad at customer/victims is bad

You good now?

Re:Not only Microsoft

[mrchaotica]

In other words, Microsoft sold you a product which you bought in good faith, and then retroactively stole part of it back from you. IANAL, but isn't this exactly what class-action lawsuits are for?

Re:Not only Microsoft

[jhoger]

For there to be a valid contract there must an offer, acceptance and consideration. In some cases, such as regarding real property, under the Statute of Frauds there must be a writing. But for a fictitious contract, you just need a promise and detrimental reliance. It's called "promissory estoppel."

For example, say you offer to donate 5 Million to your favorite university. On the basis of this promise, they start construction on a new building. You change your mind for whatever reason, the University says you have to pay. But there has been no consideration, you say. But there was a promise. The university relied on that promise to their detriment. The court will make you pay to prevent what would otherwise quite obviously be an injustice.

So how, say, the Mozilla Foundation were to choose to rely on this promise would be the obvious question. But I don't think it's a very tough one to answer.

-- John.

Re:Not only Microsoft

[ray-auch]

The only problem with this is that Eolas has freely admitted that they are not going to go after any other browser, only IE

I'm sure that's worth every penny of the paper it's written on... oh, wait they didn't write it down at all... they just said it.

Wonder who said this then:

It doesn't matter whether they're making, using, selling or offering to sell the product - they have to come to grips with the reality of the patent...I think anybody who's in the browser business should be taking a look at this verdict, and obviously, if they need a licence, they should get one

Oh, yeah, that's right - Eolas (obviously that was their lawyer's other face).

Re:Millions for defence but not one penny to a pat

[Anonymous Coward]

Where have you been? There's an entire category on /. devoted to Microsoft's attempts at a legal offensive. They're just smart enough not to be doing it directly.

Looking for a clue

[LodCrappo]

I have read 5 articles on this whole thing now. I still am not sure exactly what it is that Eolas has patented... the ability to run activeX without clicking an extra button? or something about havign external applications of any kind able to process content inside the browser window? Can anyone explain?

Also, I found this quote from Eolas:

"We released our browser back in 1995 to the world free for non-commercial use, so that should be an indicator to people that the open-source community shouldn't have anything to fear from us. "

Does Firefox/mozilla use any of the disputed technology? I would guess not if it's only ActiveX we're dealing with, but I'm not sure.. quicktime and realplayer were mentioned in one article. Any then I wonder, if Eolas really won't go after open source projects that use their tech, then could Firefox be outfitted to do exactly what IE will no longer be able too, and so then save people the trouble of redesigning all these sites?

Re:Looking for a clue

[Bert64]

They released a browser? what browser was that?

3 cheers for Microsoft and Ridiculous Patents

[MarkGriz]

"He said the IE modifications spelled out by Microsoft, which will reportedly disrupt the way online advertising and streaming media content is delivered over the Internet, is an inconvenience users could do without."

I, for one, welcome our patent subverting, advertising and streaming media content disrupting overlords.

It's Not the Innovation That's Being Stifled

[raftpeople]

What is being stifled is the trivial application of routine usage of technologies. Here are a couple examples you may not be aware of:
1) Amazon is the only company that can have a web site where you click 1 time to purchase (as in, your name and address are read in from the cookie instead of you keying it in). Barnes and Noble was required to change their web site to 2 clicks. 2) RIM (Blackberry) both went after other companies successfully, and was a target themselves (NTP $600million) for violations of the patented method of sending text over a wire-less communications connection. There are tens of thousands of trivial examples like these that have been patented.

Re:It's Not the Innovation That's Being Stifled

[Anonymous Coward]

They're trivial *now* because the patentees taught you their inventions. Thankfully, the system doesn't work the way you'd like it to, otherwise everything would be obvious.

Re:It's Not the Innovation That's Being Stifled

[KDR_11k]

Depends on what you're talking about. Cookies were invented to hold user information, reading that user information instead of asking for it again in order to sell something shouldn't be considered non-obvious in any way. Perhaps the only reason it's not obvious is because everyone else would add a confirmation before a sales contreact is established to prevent accidental orders.

Microsoft is being smart

[ObligatoryUserName]

The Slashdot crowd continues to underestimate Microsoft and misunderstand the market. The reaction to all of this is proof of that.

Quick question: what's more important ease of use or openess of code? (Watch people talk about how you can have both and how their pet project will bring this about.)

Simply put, the web is the biggest threat to Microsoft and they're continuing to neutralize it. This is the same type of smart move they made when they stopped shipping Java because "they were forced to". Consistent ubiquitous client-side technologies that aren't controlled by Microsoft are dangerous to them. This move is all about neutralizing Flash by stacking on some FUD.

"We don't need Flash!", I hear you all scream "We have Ajax!" --- think about it, what's the difference between Flash and a browser? Microsoft controls the browser. (And it's very very unlikely that that will change as long as Windows is the dominant OS.) They're going to continue to make enchancements and include bugs in their browser that will make it less productive to do cross-browser development and then provide tools and features for Windows only use that will sidetrack people doing standards based development.

The web development community is falling into the same trap that Microsoft used to win the first browser war.

Re:Microsoft is being smart

[Silvers]

The less I see of Java the happier I am.

Personally I would be happy to have a 'click to load Java so this little app can cause your browser experience to hang for 10 seconds while we consume 30megs of your RAM'.

Re:Microsoft is being smart

[PastaLover]

Why should I prefer one propietary solution (Flash) over another one (ActiveX)? Several people here have pointed out that flashblock is one of the most popular firefox plugins. Why? Flash is used to deliver ads, bad music and possibly anything that can abuse the binary blob I am loading into my browser. What's most likely to happen with this development is that most flash developers will learn to use only one flash window on a site that only needs to be clicked once to activate. Sure, this might destroy advertising in flash. Is that a bad thing for the average slashdot user? I think not.

And ajax is not being used for anything people use flash for anyway, so it's not a real competitor. (video streaming in ajax? animations in ajax?) If you're seriously suggesting all sites should be coded in flash you have a thing or two to learn about accessibility and the end user experience.

Re:Microsoft is being smart

[grubert]

Exactly true. The responses on this page show they've not read the Interview with Eoalas founder Michael Doyle. The 500 million may sound like a lot, but it's not money in the pocket by a long shot, and the lawsuit was intended to stop Microsoft dominance.

I guess Doyle really didn't expect to get a pile of cash. Perhaps he wanted to use the patent system to show how screwed up the patent system really is.

Re:Microsoft is being smart

[molarmass192]

click to load Java so this little app can cause your browser experience to hang for 10 seconds while we consume 30megs of your RAM

Don't equate shit app programmers with a good programming lanugage. I can write a shitty flash app that chokes up your browser just like you described. It's a shame they teach non-CS folk to program in Java because some of the crap they put out really reflects badly on what can be a very powerful language. I have a few applets that I've written that start immediately and are lean on memory. Yeah, it takes skill, but I happen to know a few things about threads and memory management that apparently they refuse to teach at local tech training huts.

Re:Microsoft is being smart

[bill_mcgonigle]

I think you're on the right track. Since Eolas has said it's not going after other browsers and a licensing deal with Microsoft was Eolas's great (and apparently only) chance at patent licensing, Microsoft should be looking at acquiring Eolas's assets (take over, investor buy-out, bankruptcy court) and going after Opera and Mozilla. Surely the DOJ settlement doesn't rule out patent enforcement?

Of course I'd be delighted to learn Eolas recovered all costs from litigation plus some and has a long bright future. I see they have an OpenTCL page that's been "coming soon" for almost 4 years now.

Re:Microsoft is being smart

[bill_mcgonigle]

Nevermind, comment retracted. I see Eolas was awarded $521M.

I also see references to their patent being re-examined and preliminarily rejected, but didn't find any follow-up to that. I guess it wasn't.

OLE itself is the prior art

[Anonymous Coward]

Object Embedding and Linking was created for one purpose - to embed live code into other programs. Enter a company who "patents" this idea after the fact, and now Microsoft must pay to license something that it has already invented for this exact purpose?! Wake up America! Remember innovation? Litigation will not help you maintain your high standards of living. Your laws are too bizarre for words.

Re:OLE itself is the prior art

[I'm Don Giovanni]

There are many things that may be the "prior art", but the idiotic judge refuse to allow any prior art evidence in the original case. So now Microsoft is left with fighting the patent during the appeals process. At one point during the appeals process a judge or the USPO invalidated the patent, but then later in the process it was reinstated for some reason. But the appeals process is still ongoing.

Re:OLE itself is the prior art

[I'm Don Giovanni]

My bad, I guess the appeals process is finished (someone below referenced an article saying the Supreme Court refused to hear the case). So I guess the world is stuck with a bogus patent. :(

Not Such a Big Deal

[MightyMait]

Well, having had a quick look at the MSDN article linked to from the eWeek article, it doesn't look like such a big deal.

If the object is instantiated by in-line code, it will still respond to scripting commands but will not respond to user commands until they click somewhere in particular. If an external "JScript" file (does it hurt that much to say "Java", M$?!?!), is used to instantiate the object, there is no change in the way the page will behave.

So, we can make minor changes to all our ActiveX control-embedding pages to keep them behaving the way they do now, or not. The world will not end.

Re:Not Such a Big Deal

[AeroIllini]

does it hurt that much to say "Java", M$?!?!

Someone needs a history lesson.

JavaScript, originally named Mocha and then LiveScript, was developed in 1995 by Netscape, and debuted in version 2.0. It was named JavaScript to coincide with Netscape's added Java support, even though the languages are not that similar.

JScript was added by Microsoft to Internet Explorer 3.0 in 1996, in response to Netscape's JavaScript. JScript originally used the Active Scripting engine, also known as ActiveX.

ECMAScript is the current, formal standardization (ECMA-262) of both JavaScript and JScript into a single unified language. Currently, both JavaScript and JScript are considered extensions of ECMAScript, since they are fully compliant with extra functionality. It is possible (and recommended) that all client-side J(ava)Scripting be written as fully compliant ECMAScript, as it will then be compatible with all browsers.

To this day, all Gecko-based browsers support JavaScript, and IE supports JScript (it is also available as part of .NET). Both are ECMAScript compatible, as are all the various versions used by other browsers.

Re:Not Such a Big Deal

[mermonkey]

Exactly...
This is really less of an interuption to the user-experience than people are thinking. I too panicked when i started reading this stuff yesterday. I have a widely deployed intranet web app with multiple supported versions and streams out there and was afraid i'd be shipping tons of emergency patches. I installed the "upgrade" and the change to the experience is subtle and intuitive enough not to be disruptive in most cases. Basically just a little tooltip shows up when you hover over embedded content (no alert, no popup, no ok button...). One click enables it. This means that for certain controls, an extra click is required... As it turned out in my case, all of my embedded stuff is already scripted so there is actually no behavior change triggered.

Tip: if you enable script debugging in IE, you'll see the new behavior regardles of whether or not the embedding is scripted... go figure.

Can anyone be bothered to explain to me why eola's patent is infringed if a browser enables an embedded in html, but not if i embed using js onLoad?? what da!
s.

Re:But, But, MS paid $$$K to SCO for use of theirs

[supra]

MS + SCO is a different issue w/ different circumstances (read: OT here). Eolas has a bogus patent (anyone w/ 1/2 an IT brain cell knows that). I'm not a fan of software patents to begin w/, and this one is a real winner.
They're basically trying to extort $$$ from MS, not much from the GIF fiasco. An example needs to be set; let's hope it makes some big waves.

Of *course* it's a shame, for Eolas

[Xeger]

Consider Microsoft's alternatives:

(1) Continue to infringe on Eolas' patent. Eventually Eolas will sue again, causing MSFT to pay more damages.

(2) Buy a license from Eolas.

(3) Change IE so it no longer infringes. Pay Eolas nothing.

You see, #1 and #2 would make Eolas money. #3 makes Eolas no money. In this light, could we expect Eolas' executives to say anything else about Microsoft's decision? Apparently, they're not happy with $520 million -- and their attitude to Microsoft's decision to work around the patent tells us all we need to know about Eolas' motivations.

This is a shakedown for money, pure and simple. It's yet another abuse of the patent system. They'll take MSFT for as much as they can, and anything MSFT does to stop loss, Eolas will regard as "unfortunate."

I'm not a big fan of Microsoft -- but if a thief steals from an tyrant, that doesn't make the thief's transgression any less severe or more permissible.

Re:Of *course* it's a shame, for Eolas

[nuzak]

I'm not a big fan of Microsoft -- but if a thief steals from an tyrant, that doesn't make the thief's transgression any less severe or more permissible.

Actually, as an act of aggression against the tyrant, it has some Robin-Hood like nobility, even if it's not given to the poor. No, this is a common brigand that simply shakes down anyone with a shilling only because the ones without aren't worth the effort.

Re:Of *course* it's a shame, for Eolas

[Jtheletter]

but if a thief steals from an tyrant, that doesn't make the thief's transgression any less severe or more permissible.

Wait a minute, I thought that was the whole reason Robin Hood was considered a folk hero? Damn you and your confusing moral blanket statements!

All sweeping generalizations are false. ;)

Re:Of *course* it's a shame, for Eolas

[Gleemonex]

I'm not a big fan of Microsoft -- but if a thief steals from an tyrant, that doesn't make the thief's transgression any less severe or more permissible.

I'm happiest when bad things happen to bad people.

-Glee

Re:Of *course* it's a shame, for Eolas

[Xeger]

Hmm, good point. But, in the interest of trying to salvage my sweeping generalization, let's see if I can't modify my original statement.

If the thief evenly distributes what he stole to people in need, then his act *may* be more permissible, depending on the context (was the tyrant stealing from others?) and also on your point of view (are you the tyrant who loses money, the thief who neither loses nor gains money, or one of the peasants who benefits?)

One thing's universally true though: if a thief steals from someone, and distributes it among the populace, and that thief is a government agency, then we call the thief by a special name: taxation authority. ;)

Re:Of *course* it's a shame, for Eolas

[Xeger]

Exactly. Maybe if Eolas were a benevolent corp that contributed tons of money to open source or third world nations or curing cancer, I'd feel differently. As it is, I never heard of them before the patent lawsuit (and probably never will again -- I'll be surprised if they don't liquidate and close up shop once they've got half a billion in their coffers).

Re:Of *course* it's a shame, for Eolas

[ArsonSmith]

"...if a thief steals from an tyrant, that doesn't make the thief's transgression any less severe or more permissible."

Doesn't mean we have to feel sorry for the tyrant. Throw the thief in jail, laugh at the tyrant for having it comming to them.

Re:Of *course* it's a shame, for Eolas

[Anonymous Coward]

Personally, I don't see the difference between this scenario with IE and the EU's handling of their case against MS. Both are about money, plain and simple.

Anyone going to step up and admit that the EU is playing the part of "thief" here?

Re:Of *course* it's a shame, for Eolas

[Grishnakh]

This is a shakedown for money, pure and simple. It's yet another abuse of the patent system.

No, it's not. The patent system is working exactly as designed, and Eolas is working completely within the law. What's the problem with doing something that's completely legal?

I'm not a big fan of Microsoft -- but if a thief steals from an tyrant, that doesn't make the thief's transgression any less severe or more permissible.

This is a bad analogy. A thief who steals from a tyrant (or anyone else for that matter) is violating the law. This makes them a criminal. Eolas is not breaking any laws; they are using the system to their advantage, fully within the law. That makes them not a thief, just an opportunist.

Aside from this, talking about tyrants seems pretty silly; if we were really discussing a true "tyrant", like some warlord like Saddam or Milosevic or some other ruler who severely abuses his people, kills people he doesn't like, etc., I certainly can't see the problem with someone stealing from that tyrant. If someone is already a gross violator of human rights and freedoms, I can't imagine what fool would have a problem with someone merely stealing from them. As much as I hate Microsoft, comparing them to rulers who order mass executions is just a little extreme.

But even so, I really don't see the problem with Eolas's actions here. They're using a stupidly-designed patent system to attack and damage another player who has greatly abused the legal system (namely the monopoly laws). It's sort of like seeing two schoolyard bullies get in a big fight with each other. You hope they do as much damage as possible to each other before the fight ends.

Of course, the only truly positive thing that could come out of this would be a patent system reform to eliminate stupid patents like this, but it seems highly unlikely that this will happen. So if someone's going to use the screwed-up system to screw people over, I'm glad it's happening to Microsoft instead of someone else.

The problem with looking unprofessional

[C10H14N2]

...begins with requiring the use of Flash in the first place.

Thank you, HAL. n/t

[misfit13b]

(Damn you, lameness filter.)

More lawsuits on the way!

[RedOregon]

Visit the puke's web site. They've trademarked the words "Invented Here".

(and no, I'm not going to link to it; it's obvious and it will prevent them from blocking referrals from Slashot)

how does that negate...

[Anonymous Coward]

...previous past damages, just because they are "routing around" the issue now? Seems EOLAS could still wind up with money from them.

what did they release?

[acroyear]

a version of the original open-source Mosaic with their embedded media plugin code. granted, that was before the term "Open Source" became vogue. Prior to that it was simply "well, is it GPL'ed or just BSD or MIT'ed?".

it got little attention outside the browser development world (Netscape 1.0 was out by then, and stealing the whole show), but it was demoed to Netscape and Sun in the lead-up to Java embedding in Netscape 2.0, so it is prior art to Java in the browser (and thus, flash, shockwave, and the whole ActiveX concept, much less Mozilla's plug-in architecture).

Re:what did they release?

[GooberToo]

but it was demoed to Netscape and Sun in the lead-up to Java embedding in Netscape 2.0, so it is prior art to Java in the browser (and thus, flash, shockwave, and the whole ActiveX concept, much less Mozilla's plug-in architecture).

Which is complete BS. There is prior art, but it did not originate from them! A plugin is nothing but a shared library or a DLL which implements a specifc API set. For them to have pior art means computers didn't exist until after they release their browser...which creates a chicken and egg situation; whereby, how could they of developed this if computers and the entire world of software developmnet didn't exist? Hell, ask ay X user how long they've been able to place an window inside a window...that's how a lot of older desktop environments worked. The people that validated this patent need to be taken out to a field and shot as they are too stupid to breath the same aid as the rest of us...in my opinion...

These guys are complete scum bags...in my opinion! So, please, stop with the implications, in any way, shape, or form, that they have prior art because them most certainly DO NOT. The only thing once can walk away from this experience is, the courts are badly, badly broken. Heck...look at the SCO case....it's STILL going on. Our courts systems are completely fucked up...possibly beyond repair! Our patent system is even more screwed up than our general legal system.

Re:what did they release?

[acroyear]

Prior art is relative. i agree with you that its wrong for them to have gotten this patent, but it shows the flaws of the patent system.

throughout the 90s, anybody who transfered a non-web app to the web got "the patent" on it. anybody who applied an existing pattern to a browser got "the patent". anybody who took an existing webapp, say "shopping for records on the web" (remember, someone got that patent too even though i'd been buying online through cduniverse's telnet interface since 1990) and used the same technology to create "shopping for pizzas on the web" got the patent (yes i'm exaggerating the examples, but its the kind of thing that happened).

the patent sucks and never should have been granted, the PTO sucks, the jerks who actually attack people with such patents suck, they all suck.

but the question was what was the specific patent for (embedding an app in a web browser) for which nobody knew anybody was doing it until eolas presented their example to Netsacpe and Sun in 1994. i answered the question factually. it doesn't matter that i think they're full of shit because the question didn't ask my opinion.

i once wrote how, after Bezos survived that helicopter crash, that he should get the pilot to patent helicopter crash survival in amazon's name so that anytime anybody survived a helicopter crash, they would owe Bezos money.

Re:what did they release?

[Anonymous Coward]

"lead-up to Java embedding in Netscape 2.0, so it is prior art to Java in the browser"

Netscape (2.0 or any version) does not have embedded Java, just ECMAScript (sometimes called Javascript). Calling Javascript a form of Java is like calling Perl a form of C. Two totally different languages with some syntactic commonality.

Re:what did they release?

[acroyear]

uh, excuse me, but WTF?

Netscape 2.0 had BOTH Java and Javacript. The fact that they're unrelated is quite irrelevant.

Licensing

[colinrichardday]

Would the license fees have been charged on a per copy basis? If so, how could Microsoft let people download IE for free (as in beer)?

Re:Licensing

[Minwee]

As I recall, Microsoft had already agreed to pay a portion of the retail cost of Internet Explorer to Spyglass in exchange for licensing their code.

That didn't stop them from charging $0 for it. Why should anything else?

Re:Licensing

[colinrichardday]

But that was a percentage royalty. What if Eolas demanded a per-copy fee, say $1.00 per copy?

the other option...

[TheMeth0D]

Microsoft starts charging for IE to pay the "patent troll".

I think I see what's going to happen

[Anonymous Coward]

1) MS play the game by announcing that web developers must change their code.
2) Very few or almost none of the developers do anything (think millions of legacy sites that noone can be arsed to alter)
3) Users get pissed becauses sites are now more complicated to navigate
4) Multitude 3rd parties release a wave of "toolbar accelerators" and "quick form helpers" that obviate the problem.
5) MS are happy, they complied, now EOLAS have to go after scores of little guys instead of MS. Problem shifted.

catch: (Of course lots of malware authors will jump into the fray to offer said "accelerator toolbars" replete with keyloggers.)

Here is what YOU need to do....

[Anonymous Coward]

After a couple of weeks (or days) when you are sick to death of "click here to activate control" on almost every webpage you visit, you'll feel the burning hatred toward Eolas and how they have handled this whole suit. Here is what you do:

1) Take a look here to find out who is responsible for this and the name of the agitator:
http://www.doyles.com/mike

2) Look up his phone number via Google (hint: he lives in Wheaton)

3) Every time you have to "click here to activate control"...call him up and yell "you're an asshole" then hang up!

4) Enjoy!

Hope this helps you as much as it has me in the past week or so.

Re:Here is what YOU need to do....

[Grishnakh]

Or you could just switch to Firefox and enjoy a superior browser without all the security problems that plague IE.

I am very happy about this

[paulpach]

Flash is a usability nightmare:

• Press ctrl-F and try to search for something inside a flash movie: NOP.
• It is imposible for a screen reader to read stuff inside flash.
• Most people use flash for animation. Animation is a terrible feature usability wise because it distracts the user and does not let him focus on content.
• Flash is binary, it is nearly imposible to write a program that parses a flash movie and gets information out of it. Unlike plain old html.
• Flash is not bookmarkable. If you have a flash movie, and jump forth and back in it, it is not possible to bookmark where you are at inside the movie. You can only bookmark the page containing the flash
• Back button does not work. Navigate inside a flash movie. and try to go back with the back button. The browser will go back to the last page. No, having a back button inside the flash itself is a poor substitute usability wise. The back button is the single most used feature in any browser
• Flash is propietary. Although open source tools exist, most people require the full power of the comercial implementations
• About the only reason why you would want flash as a user is to play online games, not much more.
• Flash is not standard and does not work with all browsers. Yes, the vast majority, but not all.

Many of these problems also apply to java applets which are also affected by the change

I am actually very happy with this turn of events. If this leeds to less flash out there, this makes my life easier as a user and as a web developer. This actually gives me some ammo to convince my employer to stay away from it.

Now I hope someone comes out with a patent for frames and pop up windows :)

Re:I am very happy about this

[Anonymous Coward]

• Press ctrl-F and try to search for something inside a flash movie: NOP.
  • Learn to use the accessibility features
• It is impossible for a screen reader to read stuff inside flash.
  • Again, accessibility features
• Flash is binary, it is nearly impossible to write a program that parses a flash movie and gets information out of it. Unlike plain old html.
  • Good. I don't need people stealing my methods and content.
• Flash is not bookmarkable. If you have a flash movie, and jump forth and back in it, it is not possible to bookmark where you are at inside the movie. You can only bookmark the page containing the flash
  • Try using Named Anchors
• Back button does not work. Navigate inside a flash movie. and try to go back with the back button. The browser will go back to the last page. No, having a back button inside the flash itself is a poor substitute usability wise. The back button is the single most used feature in any browser
  • Named Anchors, again. You may notice that the Forward button magically works then, too.

While I partially agree with the some of those points I did not answer, it seems that those points are mostly opinion. Flash haters on Slashdot are nothing new.

As for Eolas, I believe they may be the first five-letter four-letter word.

Re:I am very happy about this

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, shit, replace "flash" with "AJAX", and almost every one of your points still stands.

only geeks/advanced users search for exact phrases

[justin samuel]

the average user doesn't enclose their google search phrase in quotes.

no quotes: 12,200,000 results

good luck getting on the first page there.

Eolas Deserves NOTHING

[Nom du Keyboard]

Eolas deserves nothing in this case. Why? Because they never produced any successful product implementing it.

Love it or hate it, IE is the currently most used browser. And this is one of the significant features of it. Since Eolas has no competing product, why do they deserve a penny? They can't show any damages. They can't show that they sold their idea to someone else who Microsoft ran out of business. All they can do is say we'll prevent the Internet from being a more convenient place unless we're paid lots of money.

I'm sorry that Eolas is sad that Microsoft is going to byte the bullet and dodge their patent. Wrong! I'm actually not sorry at all!

Mod Parent Up

[QRDeNameland]

Exactly my thoughts...if Amazon didn't invent cookies nor the mouse click, and we can presume the obviousness of the fact that 1 click to purchase is more desirable than multiple clicks, why should everyone else be forced to make their purchase process more complicated just because Amazon was able to get to the USPTO first? If someone borrows something from Amazon's particular implementation of the 1 click purchase, it is fair for a patent to protect them, but to patent 1 click is akin to patenting the idea of of a doorknob that only requires one hand and forcing all other doorknob makers to make knobs which require both hands to operate.

Re:Mod Parent Up

[Anonymous Coward]

Oooh, I can see the advertisement potential!

  * Requires only one hand to polish our knob!
  * Great for amputees or people with the other hand occupied!

Ok, I'm off to the patent office. Thanks for the idea! Time to stifle some door knob innovation.

Re:Mod Parent Up

[Loconut1389]

While I agree the Amazon 1-click patent sucks (as do many, but not all, software patents), I disagree with your analogy. Within the scope of the patent system as it is, Amazon's claim is valid and makes sense- but I think there should be some way to refine what can constitute a patent or what constitutes obvious. Maybe not worded how I'd like, but I think it made sense?

In any case, for your analogy, if doorknobs were all two handed (perhaps like bank vaults) and you came up with an idea for a way to do it one-handed, wouldn't you want to patent it and feel that it was valid?

Again, I think within the scope of the patent system, Amazon is in the right. I think the patent system is wrong.

Could there be another reason?

[kimvette]

Considering that Microsoft is filing thousands of patents on software techniques and ideas per year, could it be that they want to strengthen what little argument they have to support their frivilous patents (which all cover prior art) so that when they start to lose market share and start firing shots at Linux in the guise of patent infringement suits, they can point at this particular case and say "See? We had to change our WEB BROWSER to conform with software patents. If WE have to do it, we expect Linux and other open source products to honor OUR patents as well."

Just a hunch. . .

Eolas today, TiVo tomorrow.

[LibertineR]

How many times does this have to happen before these folks figure out how to get paid without ruining their future revenue opportunties? You would think these high-paid CEO's get some knowledge about this when going for those MBAs?

In TiVos case, had they just sold out to DirecTV, they could have walked away fat, dumb and happy, but they played hardball, kept their intellectual property, and now the whole DVR industry is just going around them.

Get your filty hands off my machine

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't want MY code fixed. Leave it alone.

Not that I use IE when I'm on a WinDoze box - but I paid good money for your crappy code and I don't what you to make that modification.

Of course, there isn't anything I can do except turn off updates to prevent Microsoft from making this change - which isn't an option.

Chalk up another reason to use free software.

Eolas is full of it

[digitalgimpus]

They are upset Microsoft would rather change the product, rather than pay an insane amount of cash to Eolas.

Now Eolas is effectively worth nothing more than the $500 mill reward they got a few years ago... after all it must have spent on defending the patent... $0 return.

To bad for them... they have a patent that's worth about as much as the lint in my pocket.

That's the problem with patents... there's nothing dictating that people have to use your technology. Sorry Eolas... you really lost at the end of the day. Your company's name is loosing credibility as you didn't invent anything (most consider prior art like ViolaWWW and even Hypercard to be the first).

My bet is they will somehow take Microsoft back to court, and try and get them to license, under some insane law.

Patents suck.

IMHO if you don't enforce your patent from day 1, you loose..... I hate this BS where a company can sit idle for years, wait until it's embedded in everything, then start asking for backpayment. It happened with GIF too. IMHO that's fraud.

Re:Don't Cheer for MS - OR MAYBE...

[Nom du Keyboard]

by dropping the disputed technology, Microsoft is tacitly admitting that the patent is valid.

Or that the Patent Office and Courts -- especially those with technological illiterates on the juries -- are Fucked!

Oh...

[Anonymous Coward]

Grow up!

Re:hi

[middlemen]

no Google is your friend.. :)

This is not a bad thing?

[Frosty Piss]

It's not a big deal. Minor nuisance at best. Pretty much everything continues to work, however.

Why isn't this made clear in any of the stories on this? It would certainly reduce the amount of hyperventilating.

Re:But, But, MS paid $$$K to SCO for use of theirs

[Grishnakh]

And SCO has a bogus case. Anyone with 1/2 a brain cell of any kind knows that. What's the difference?

Chimera browser

[LightSail]

Chimera browser had limited ability to use an external program to process data that the browser could not handle in 1994-1995. Isn't that what Eolas claims to have invented?

Darth Eolas...

[JohnnyCanuck]

I find your lack of compensation....disturbing....

This isn't and "A OR B" decision

[Anonymous Coward]

One doesn't have to decide Eolas or Microsoft, one being "good" and the other being "bad". This is not an A OR B issue. Both Eolas and Microsoft are wrong. Thus, to use a very old fashioned expression: "A pox on both their houses" !

Eolas could make money...

[Anonymous Coward]

Couldn't Eolas make money by selling patches to users that put the browser back the way it is now (no "click" required to start an ActiveX )???

I guess there is a business model behind this insanity after all.

Hooray!

[Anonymous Coward]

Theres nothing I love more than the internet experience getting even worse than it already is for Windows/IE users :D

OT

[Crizp]

OT, but I'm wondering what goes through your head when you write "how could they of developed this if"

Really, I want to know. I know "could have" can sound like "could of" but how do you not see the error when it's written? Granted, I don't know if this language is your mother tongue, but the words "of" and "have" are pretty basic English Please don't be mad, I'm trying to understand why this is such a common mistake :)

OT and non-anonymous. Like I care about Slashdot karma anyway.

Re:OT

[crabpeople]

i say 'could of' all the time. it would be easy to write that if you are writing down your thoughts. I wouldnt even consider it wrong really, because its how you pronounce the word. emphasising the 'have' in 'could have' makes it more formal or something. when i say both out loud, definately the extra æffort put into saying 'have' makes the sentance seem more clunky and formal.

also when you pronouncing it 'could of' it makes it seem more, how do i put it, influencing? like its more of a phrase that opens (inspires directed doubt in?) the mind. It makes you start seeing it as more of a possibility, just like saying just 'could' would have over 'could have'. But as always, IANALinguist so i dont know the technical term for 'inspires directed doubt'. When you overpronouncing the 'have' it makes me less likely to believe the could, whatever the could was referring to, than if i just say 'could of' and kind of trail off to let your mind wander around it. noam chomsky would know the correct way to describe it. he knows everything.

Re:OT

[Crizp]

Yes, in speech I don't mind at all, and often say it in the "quick" form myself. But writing it? You're not saying could of, you're saying could have - with a different pronounciation. In writing it is "could have", no matter how you say it.

The words have totally different meanings, and "of" just does not fit inside the sentence - I'm no linguist either and wouldn't know a plus quam perfectum from a hammer, but this practice makes a sentence without meaning, leading people to stop and parse the implied meaning, thus losing concentration (ok, for a millisecond).

Off on a tangent - sorry. I'll stop now, knowing the language is in constant evolution and the tendencies not changeable by silly, wailing persons like myself.

Re:OT

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you come from the South? The only people I've met who say "could of" are ignorant rednecks from the South. (Yes, if you think "could of" is valid English, you are ignorant of your own language.)

Re:OT

[crazyharry]

for the same amount of chars it could be "could've" which would be closer.

Re:OT

[GooberToo]

I believe you are confused as to where you are posting. Please validate the website address again. If after url'ing a second time, you have confirmed you are some place other than slash dot...then I'll agree you have a valid point. Until such time, one has to wonder what kind of absolute idiot thinks that such nits have any place here. You would have to be a serious prick in real life to go out of ones way to nit pick the grammar of the random ramblings. Especially considering the vast majority here have such worthless contributions in the first place. And then there are those that are so worthless, they have to attempt to troll and distract from the topic at hand. Opps...I went and spoke out of turn. Hopefully you'll not nit me to death for looking down on you. Dang, I'm so ashamed of my self... But wait, there's more! We're talking about someone that nits the grammar but ignores the many typos, transposed letters, and missing words? Come on...what a poor excuse of a troll!

Seriously, if you're not trolling, consider getting a life as this is pretty pethetic. Seriously! If you are trolling, well, consider getting a life of ending the one you have! Seriously, as that's even more pethetic! Either way, you have my pitty. Seriously!

If you seriously believe /. is anything other than ramblings off the top of one head, you seriously have problems. Sure, there are those that take a bit of time to put their thoughts together and what-not...but hte vast majority simply type off the top of their head; or some, their ass. There are times when I fall squarely into both groups. I for one, don't bother with spell checking...grammar checking...or proof reading...here. Seriously...why would I? You think this reflects my professional, or heck, even personal life in any way? IF you do, you seriously need help. I just don't have that kind of time to spend on random ramblings...

Re:Millions for defence but not one penny to a pat

[Anonymous Coward]

Worst. Signature. Ever. 8 years? What are you a university freshman or something?

"Extra mouse click" in the near future?

[grolschie]

This already the case. I have been wondering why all of a sudden both my XP machines now say "click to activate this control" on every embedded flash webpage. Damn annoying.

Almost on the bottom line

[inaequitas]

It is worthwhile to acknowledge a few things here:

1. Microsoft was _not_ forced to do this. Their action is one that is beneficial mainly to them by putting the burden of working around this issue on the end developers. Faster and cheaper. It makes perfect sense as a business practise.

2. There are good things coming out of this, such as ActiveX being done away with and Microsoft not putting up to crap. Beyond zealotry and personal preferences, we need to try and keep an objective outlook on things [is this the wrong crowd for that!] The fact that MS chose this route is indicative of some kind of an acknowledgement that they were mistaken with ActiveX.

They should have pitched their patent before suing. Who's going to do business with someone they lost a trial to?

It's not about the present

[jofi]

If they were still using the patent, Eolas may expect more "compensation" later on. I don't, at the moment, regularly use IE but I loaded the update in a virtual machine to see what the changes were like. I simply can't get used it, seeing how Firefox does not hassle me when I go to a page with Flash or a video.

Microsoft should sue them back...

[Anonymous Coward]

The Eolas logo looks awfully similar to the blue 'e' of Internet Explorer. I mean just cause they coloured it green...

Re:But, But, MS paid $$$K to SCO for use of theirs

[Karzz1]

I thought anyone with 1/2 a brain cell would know that the difference is that Eolas is not trying to bury Linux the way SCO is. MS did not purchase licenses from SCO to satisfy any legal/moral obligation; MS licensed SCO (whatever it is that they licensed) in order to fuel a FUD campaign against Linux.

I have to post anonymously...

[Anonymous Coward]

...but it is a very real problem. As soon as the company I work for started doing good business, we showed up on the radar of a whole pile of patent trolling companies. One company had a patent on storing customer subscription information in a "computer file". And we had to cough up the money. Currently we're under attack from another company that has a patent on notifying postal carriers to pick up packages "using a computer".

Patenting these "inventions" did not in any way help society. We came up with them ourselves without even a moment of thought. So did everyone else who does business today. And these patent troll companies just go around and extort money from anyone who becomes financially successful. They do it because the letter of the law supports them in doing so.

As an example of how ridiculous it is -- the threats we get aren't even because they know we're violating a patent. They just send a letter saying basically "you are using computers to do business, so we're pretty sure you're violating one of our patents. Cough up x dollars or prove you're not violating through a very expensive legal process". As long as they price the settlement less than the likely cost of the legal process, a business will usually have to pay up in the interest of their shareholders.

On the consumer side you may not see it as stifling innovation, because companies don't shut down, they pay up and move on. And they usually can't talk about it afterwards. But a real loss of time and money has taken place that would have otherwise gone to many better things... innovation, lower prices, better wages. This patent crap makes most companies less efficient, in the interest of a very few companies that don't even offer anything in the marketspace they hold their patents in. It's just bad, bad, bad.

Re:But, But, MS paid $$$K to SCO for use of theirs

[Grishnakh]

Eolas has stated they just want to hurt or get money from MS, and doesn't want to bother anyone else.

I think the previous poster's point was that MS bought a very expensive "license" from SCO, publicly declaring how much they support "intellectual property rights." But now they're refusing to buy an expensive license from Eolas. It's hypocritical.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

nope, but

[J. Random Luser]

I run a quicktime streaming server. I would dearly love to have simple web pages, fast to load, standards compliant, with links to my media rtsp://my.server/path/to/movie.mov Most browsers, including IE on Macintosh, will recognise rtsp as a "foreign" protocol and call a helper program. OK, user intervention is now required to set application preferences so that eg. QuickTimePlayer opens .mov .mp4 .m4v etc, and RealPlayer opens .ram.

But on Windows the filetype/application associations are controlled by Registry Keys, and any app. can overwrite the settings for any other. IE cannot call a helper for rtsp even if one exists. It will always attempt (& fail) to retrieve the url above as http://my.server/path/to/movie.mov One could believe on Windows you're not supposed to use anything else except WindowsMediaPlayer and .mms

So we have subterfuges, like loading plugins via ActiveX calls, and using <object> & <embed> tags. To satisfy the Eolas patent we now have to wrap the whole fudge pie in jscript? No way. This straw has broken this camel's back. I'm dropping back to plain simple text url links, and a help page with a short script people can read, (maybe understand? ;-) and paste into Notepad to make themselves a qt-hack.reg file, which a simple double click should install via regedit. Yes, I expect every WMP, RP, and SP to fiddle with it, but after a couple of restores, I expect folks who want to continue using my site will Get A Proper Browser(TM)

Call your plugins using JavaScript

[Anonymous Coward]

at the company I work at, we've been including plugins in the page using JavaScript include files for about 9 months now anyways: it is a simple way to Validate the page and include the EMBED tag as well...

Compare software patents with cars

[peter Payne]

I'd like to compare this silly software/idea/IP patenting with cars. I just bought a new Mazda MPV, the cool newly redesigned one that they just came out with in Japan. There were many new features in my new car, including a RFID key that lets me unlock and drive the car without taking the key card out of my pocket, a cool trunk under the back seat, and "business class" style seats. What does the car industry do right, and the software industry do so terribly wrong, that keeps these nifty inventions coming? Why wouldn't, say, Toyota patent "a method for allowing the reclining of passengers during transport" and then say sorry, we thought of the application of reclining seats in cars. Why doesn't Nissan put the MD player (all cars in Japan come with MD in them, it's horrid) on the left side of the dash instead of the center or the right, then patent it? The answer is, of course, because that is stupid as hell. Yet the software patent machine has allowed people to patent the click, the concept of a "shopping cart," and a method of plugins for a browser (which is no doubt based on every other plugin system that was ever implemented in software programs). You can't put a palette in your app because, well, Adobe invented those, and therefore the idea of a dockable screen element that allows you to control your image is not open to you (for another 15 years, or whatever it is). If they allowed this in the auto industry, there'd be cats and dogs, living together...mass hysteria. I believe that a concrete, specific idea should be protect-able -- the ZIP algorithm, say, or JPG. But in Japan, I hear that you can patent a "business plan" (as in, come up with a new way to package or sell bananas and you can own that actual idea of doing business that way). That's just not right. As I grow as a software user, I'm gagging under the weight of Adobe's heavy apps, and the crashing of CS2 (especially GoLive) is really robbing the joy that is my right as a Mac user. Well, maybe I could look for some alternatives from Macromedia, the only other big software company out there....but alas, they are owned by Adobe now. There will be no more innovation in image manipulation, HTML creation, vector image creation or page layout unless it suits one company. All because some idiots in Congress made it okay to say that someone can own a universal idea. Can anyone much smarter than me critique this and tell me if I'm all wrong, if maybe there is a functional system for protecting of ideas in the auto industry but it works more smoothly (perhaps through industry agreements and pre-set rules)?

Yes, they do.

[hacksoncode]

The automotive industry is just as rife with stupid patent problems as the software industry. It's just been around long enough that the majority of the stupid patents have expired.

Really, I worked at GM for a couple of summers (and my dad worked there for 36 years), and most engineers were just as annoyed with patents as people on Slashdot are.

And no, their competitive landscape being smaller doesn't help them much because dozens of small "inventors" (and I use the term lightly) patent random obvious stuff all the time and go after them too.

Just to take one random example: putting the map light on the bottom of the rear view mirror is a patented feature.

"mandatory download" WTF ??

[RockDoctor]

FTFA : On April 11, the new version of IE will be distributed as a mandatory download.
So MS are going to send the goons round to put a gun to my head and make me download this? Or they're going to send the cops round to arrest me if I don't download it? And can their servers handle the massive slashdotting they're going to get when the mandatory deadline comes due?