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Eolas vs. Microsoft Lawsuit Settled and Sealed

Posted by Zonk on from the another-biggie-comes-to-a-close dept.

theodp writes "The Seattle P-I's Todd Bishop reports that Microsoft has settled its 8-year-old web browser plug-in patent dispute with Eolas. The spat begat the click-to-activate Web after Microsoft was slapped with a $500+ million patent infringement judgement. Neither Eolas nor Microsoft will be disclosing terms of the deal, although Eolas told investors to expect a dividend (PDF). Microsoft didn't say whether or how the settlement would affect its approach to the underlying technology in IE or other programs. Just last month, the USPTO issued a non-final rejection of the patent's claims, citing the work of Pei-Yuan Wei as prior art."

7 of 45 comments (clear)

  1. Excellent by _Shorty-dammit · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Sounds as though the end is nigh for the useless extra clicks. Eolas deserves a smack. Too bad they're getting rewarded.

  2. what????? by superwiz · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Two public companies reach an agreement and the terms are not released to shareholders? What is this? Science fiction?

    --
    Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
    1. Re:what????? by EveryNickIsTaken · · Score: 4, Informative

      Wait for the next quarter's report when they'll have to disclose it. SEC rules are fun.

  3. Hurry!! by SpeedyDX · · Score: 3, Funny

    What's the ticker symbol for Eolas? I uh ... just want to check their um ... corporate history. Nothing to do with the upcoming dividend. No sirree.

  4. Re:Change in law by giafly · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Simple. Freeze the shares of a company who files an IP suit over a patent they're not using.
    Dumb.
    1. Company announces it will sue and shares rise
    2. Company sues and shares are frozen at this higher price
    3. Directors get $$$$s by e.g. borrowing against the shares
    4. Profit!
    --
    Reduce, reuse, cycle
  5. Re:Click twice pain... by Ajehals · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Can I ask why you would come to that conclusion? It was the only one I ignored using the following reasoning:

    The process to invalidate the patent was clearly initiated, surely it is in the public interest to remove invalid patents, regardless of the outcome of any particular case. Its not like the settlement would establish any sort of precedent, never mind the fact that Microsoft or Eolas's statements on the matter shouldn't have any bearing on whether the patent is valid or not, especially since there is an established method for testing the validity of patents.

    I may be being naive of course.

  6. Re:For the layman by silentben · · Score: 5, Informative

    In a nutshell, Eolas had a patent pending for some form of integrated media into web pages. When IE supported Flash, Eolas saw this as infringement and sued Microsoft. Since then, MS designed new versions of IE to require you to click on a Flash element in order to activate it, thereby no longer being fluid. But they left a back door in that if a developer included the Flash object by having a separate javascript file write it to the page, then this would not require clicking to activate it (enter SWFObject as the lay-developers easy way out). I just hope that this settlement included some exchange of words that discouraged Eolas from pursuing similar charges against Mozilla and other browser developers. It is bad enough they had effected change with THIS frivolous lawsuit.