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'Eolas' Browser Plug-in Patent Case Rises Again
eldavojohn writes "A legal battle that has been around since 1999 and seemingly ended in 2005 now rears its head again. In a confusing move, the USPTO 'reissued a Microsoft patent last week covering the same concepts outlined in the Eolas patent and with wording mirroring that of the Eolas patent. With both companies holding identical patents, the USPTO will now play King Solomon and decide which parent gets custody of the baby.' Both the Microsoft & Eolas patents are available online."
Message me in a few years, to let me know how it turns out.
...for being "obvious?"
----- Connection reset by beer
The patent system is broken. Software patents are just plain dumb.
Do something about it now before things get worse.
Worked for King Solomon! Just split Microsoft in half, Applications apart from OS and we're all set!
Do you Gentoo!?
all that are doing is giving MS a chance to prove that they invented the technology before it was patented. This is not unusual.
It is also why there are forms of invention protection you can use when shopping around for investors.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
They might end up cutting Bill Gates in half.
Because it can screw Microsoft. Right?
See why I don't like software patents, because they're stupid and everyone gets hurt.
Unless of course, you manage to patent something that a large company will have to pay you $500+ million for. But if that's my large company, I'll be upset.
At this rate, we might as well patent integration and differentiation.
Since Microsoft already paid a licensing fee as a result of the law suit, seems pretty cut and dry. Either both should be rejected, or Eolas keeps the golden goose.
All Slashdot users apply for the same patent. Then we can all fight for the baby.
http://judiciary.house.gov/committeestructure.aspx ?committee=3
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
... the USPTO issued itself a patent on issuing Identical patents. This new patent, along with its other patents for issuing Holy Crap Obvious patents and Why Not patents will now allow it to sue itself under the latest incarnation of the Recursive Rules of Litigation.
...fawkked in the head... they are probably criminal now, as they've demonstrated to the whole world that they do not even consider the very patents they've already issued as prior art. They must be either accepting bribes and therefore should be investigated by the FBI, or are doing lots of mind-numbing drugs, and therefore should be investigated by the DEA. Or both.
And cut the baby in half for them to share. Let's see who's willing to give it up.
What?
I can't speak for all /.ers, but I for one hate software patents much more than I hate Microsoft. Specifically, I use Microsoft products to help me do my job, and software patents potentially interfere with my ability to do my job. My code is already protected by copyright, all patents would do is create weak and stupid barriers to entry for our competitors.
You are reading a copy of my copyrighted post.
To the death in a Roman Coliseum?
They keep going on about Linux and how it infringes on their patents. I'm sure Microsoft's products infringe on quite a few too, it's just many companies don't have the time and money to spend suing Microsoft.
Say what? I'm sorry, was it the "I'm not a Christian" line? Should I have said, "I'm not a Christian, Muslim, or Jew" instead? I know you're just trying to troll, but you're confusing me.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Butcher the patent and send both of them home.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Can they just bust microsoft for copyright infringment now?
meh
In August 2003, a federal jury found that Microsoft had infringed on the Eolas patents and awarded the firm $521 million
I imagine Eolas will be laughing all the way to the bank... regardless
USPTO
Obviously, Solomon's situation - and solution - differed somewhat from the classical problem and answer in the details, but underlying it is the same basic idea, which is to force the liar to stay consistent and the honest person to change.
The USPO (and all other patent offices) rely on a high level of honesty, as they stand, but what if a variant of King Solomon's approach could be used, when rival claims exist? Have a way of putting the claims on the spot such that the real claimant will concede something before any false claimants would? Mind you, that might not work - current culture is designed to put self above all else, then both would rather rip the intellectual baby in half. It would only work with ideas developed by people who primarily care that the customers get the products. For example, I could easily see a humanitarian who develops a cure for some deadly disease preferring that the product be developed by someone else than not at all. That's not going to happen very often, though.
Nonetheless, I believe that such methods are inevitable, eventually. The system as it stands doesn't scale and frequently doesn't work well - if at all. Somebody will have to develop filtering techniques that allow false and fraudulent claims to be detected much more easily - and preferably by anyone who wants to apply those techniques. The patent pending scheme is supposedly so that problems can be found - well, that's all fine and good, if there's any way to find said problems. If a programmatic test can be found to do at least some of the filtering, then all the USPO needs is to distribute the appropriate BOINC clinet. Eventually, this must happen, as there's simply more work than can humanly be done in the time alloted and the system, the inventors and the innovators are suffering as a result.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Eolas: It's the same patent!
Microsoft: IsNot!
Eolas: How can you say it IsNot the same patent?
Microsoft: because we've patented IsNot,, which means we can say it, and you can't!
Eolas: IsNot IsNot IsNot!
Microsoft: Lawyers!!!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
You don't know where to start because your bogus claims are themselves bogus. The bible is a very important piece of historical culture at a bare minimum and has greatly influenced not millions but *billions* of people.
1) Microsoft has a patent office that spends its days generating patents based upon other people's work and the Eolas patent just ran through the mill.
2) Microsoft thinks, perhaps knows that they can get away with anything because its not about what your patent says but about how much money and bull you can throw behind it. In that event they elected to coopt the Eolas patent given how much fun they have had with this and the whole affair is really just a big kiss my ass to Eolas.
3) Microsoft is hoping to so annoy the Patent office with this conflict nonsense that they rule both patents invalid on the face of it rather than fight to justify one or the other. Yes the dates differ but perhaps the amount of money Microsoft can throw at fighting it will cow the patent office into submission.
Ha ha ha... is it first to invent or first "patent" post for the /. contest?
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
Why don't we settle this roman-style and eradicate the patent from both portfolios ? This patent has been used as a weapon... Who would you rather give a gun to: a gangster or a thug ? Either one's going to hurt you with it.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
What the difference between IsNot and != ?
.NET
.NET Programmer)
Sounds like old combination of operators with a new name for
BTW: IANA.P (I Am Not A
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
... there is a time limit from fist publication of an invention to when it can be applied for a patent. If that time is exceeded then no patent will be granted.
The case itself (not to mention when the USPTO first granted the patent) is far older than that time limit.
Obviously if MS can prove they invented it first, then both patents are invalid.
Eolas because they were not the first to invent and MS because the technology was in use far longer than allowed, prior to their patent application.
This can also be the test case to prove or disprove the arguement of changing to first to file from first to invent, as supposedly the arguement is that prior art evidence rules in either case. In other words, you shouldn't have to file for a patent on something you do not want or believe is patentable, that you developed and without fear that someone else will take your work and be the first to file.
If the USPTO ignores their own first publication rules (and this does include public use) then they only add to the invalidation of the patent system (which extends beyond just software).
And this doesn't even touch on the fact that software patents are acts of fraud, as software is made up of the universal agreed upon things that cannot be patented.
Natural Law, Physical Phenomenon, Abstract ideas and the rest (i.e. mathematical algorithms) are subsets of these three primary NON-PATENTABLE things.
see: http://threeseas.net/abstraction_physics.html
When this idea was 'invented', web browsers were new, and the idea of a browser plug-in was to allow the playing of media, like .GIF's, .WAV's, and .FLI's on a web page.
Taking that idea of a plug in, writing one that makes it's own connection to a server to provide interactive data appears to be the basic 'invention'.
When I looked through Google Groups (USENET Archive) I could find nothing mentioned prior to then that mentioned an interactive plugin.
My thought is, because it's such a bad, horrible, wrong idea.
Browser plug-ins are not portable, between platforms, OS's or browsers. They run in native code, and need hardware access to render video/audio and access the network making them difficult to secure. They hurt maintainability, accessability and localizability. They can be used for DOS attacks on third parties. Have version compatibility issues, etc. etc. You're basically throwing away the entire point of a standards based browser, in favor of a single-use executable.
Patenting browser plugins that get embedded in pages was like patenting shooting yourself in the foot.
if you RTA you notice that this one is copy pasted from ars techncia which at least was paraphrased from the seattle paper entry from bloomberg news.
which begs to ask the question: How many licks does it take to get to the center....
"Jazz isn't dead, it just smells funny" ~Frank Zappa
EdelFactor
Our company spent upwards of half a million dollars revising code so that the 'click to activate' crap wouldn't show up in IE. Our team spent at least $40k.
Though mildly irritating for your average at-home browser, a message saying anything about 'clicking to active' an 'Object' is a barrier of entry for someone who is using software to learn to read at a readiness level; we couldn't just 'leave it be'.
Now that it gets reversed? I'd like to have that chunk o' change back, that's for sure.
King Solomon offered to cut the baby in half to find out who the real mother was, since the real mother wouldn't do that to her baby. In this case the appropriate parallel would be to ban browser plugins to both Microsoft and Eolas. Since Eolas is little more than a PITA and doesn't have a product of any kind, they shouldn't be bothered by that at all, which by analogy with Solomon's decision would give the patent to Microsoft.
n/t
... for there to be TWO patents out there, each for half the technology, with Eolas having one, Microsoft the other?
What they'd do is cross-license with each other, and form a cartel to squeeze the rest of us.
Splitting patents is like chopping starfish up and throwing the pieces back into the bay.
No, He(?) was not trying to confuse you. He(?) just wanted the abuse room - which you seem to be in charge of. SO, go ahead and abuse him. He wants to be ripped - the stupid git.
This message was brought to you by "Lack of Sleep."
While .NET C# uses "is" a a test on type, not value, if "IsNot" follows after the VB6 usage of Is, then it's related to propagation of Null.
Any relational operator against Null always returns false. Logical operators don't, however, and Is/IsNot don't.
Example:
(A Null) is always False
(A IsNot Null) tests what it says.
Oh, and remember that Null in VB, VB.NET is not at all related to a NULL pointer. VB and VB.NET use Nothing for that.
Most literature from the last 2000 years is garbage (to me anyway). Worse, we're forced to read and write about in in school in favor of stories that are actually fun to read. Travesty, that what it is, a travesty. If I ruled the world I'd burn all books, long live teh internet!
http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html32/
#find
will the the patent madness end?