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Eolas Sues World + Dog For AJAX Patent
helfrich9000 writes "Eolas has filed suit against 23 companies (guess where), including Adobe, Amazon.com, Apple, eBay, Google, Yahoo!, JPMorgan, and Playboy. At issue are a pair of patents (US 7,599,985 and US 5,838,906), one of which (the '906) was successfully used in litigation against Microsoft Corp for a $565 million judgement. Says Dr. Michael D. Doyle, chairman of Eolas, 'We developed these technologies over 15 years ago and demonstrated them widely, years before the marketplace had heard of interactive applications embedded in Web pages tapping into powerful remote resources. Profiting from someone else's innovation without payment is fundamentally unfair. All we want is what's fair.'"
... otherwise we could have had a chance of removing this godawful AJAX UI for good.
Colorless green Cthulhu waits dreaming furiously.
It was hosted on Geocities, otherwise they would be able to show you. Trust them.
Funny how every one of those things you listed with the exception of the military can be done cheaper and more effectively by the private sector.
DOT = employees getting paid above market wages to hold up "stop/slow" signs.
City water utility = Meter readers getting paid above market wages to drive a car and punch numbers into a PDA
FDA = Yeah, that's worked out real well. I trust the UL much more than I trust the FDA. I've yet to have a UL approved appliance burn my house down. I have had FDA approved food put me in the hospital.
The internet, yeah it was partially developed by DOD and then properly turned over to the private sector when the commercial uses become apparent. You think we would have seen the rush of online innovation if the government was still in charge?
Yes, because history has taught us time and again that when left to their own accords, the private industry can police itself.
I'm god, but it's a bit of a drag really...
Of course I feel an obligation, which is why I donate money to help those in need. We libertarians tend to draw the line at enforcement, though, believing that in a truly civil society force is only used to stop those who would use force on others. It's called the principle of non-initiation of force.
A truly civil society can only exist when enough people of goodwill make free choices to help others. The whole struggle should be in the convincing of others to do good, rather than in expecting a strong-arm government to make us good. Enforcement of such has never worked, and the more you enforce, the less civil the society becomes.