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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.'"
then the 17 years of protection by the patents is pretty much over. And if they published this information before they filed the patent then it's now in public domain anyways.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
Abraham Maslow in his 1943 paper "A Theory of Human Motivation" cf levels on Physiology and Safety.
And if they published this information before they filed the patent then it's now in public domain anyways. LoB
I believe in the US you are allowed to file one year after you publish. In Europe I believe this is not the case
SSC
Looks to me like they patented distributed computing embedded into a web browser. Anyone have more background on the patents (I lost interest in trying to interpret patent-speak after page 3 or so of their patent application). It seems to be merely abstracting a technology seen in mainframes and mainframe clients (remote computing), into what could be described as the biggest mainframe in the world (the internet).
then the 17 years of protection by the patents is pretty much over.
Don't worry. They've taken that into account and will now only pretty much sue the pants off those companies.
And if they published this information before they filed the patent then it's now in public domain anyways.
In some jurisdictions. From BitLaw:
One of the most important lessons to learn from this requirement is that there is a one year period after the first pbulic [sic] dislcosure or offer for sale of an invention during which a patent application must be filed. [...] Although the United States grants the one year grace period described in the last two rules above, most other countries do not grant such a period.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
Maslow never proposed a social utopia where all of his D-needs were met by society or government. In fact, he describes self-actualization as a "motivator", i.e. what makes people achieve more success in life for themselves. His theories are generally accepted as theories of personality and motivation, not social or societal ideals.
-- "In order to have power, I must be taken seriously." -Mojo Jojo
by Google http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&site=&btnG=Search&q=cache:http://imvivo.com/DetailsView/tabid/104/IndexID/1779944/Default.aspx
The earlier patent gets 17 years from the date of issue, which was in 1998 (so it expires in 2015 as long as they pay their maintenance fees), because it was filed before June 8, 1995 and gets the longer of 17 years from issue or 20 years from filing.
Ironically, the later-filed patent gets 20 years from the earliest date of filing, i.e., the date at which the earlier-filed application was filed (because the later-filed patent is a continuation of a continuation of the earlier-filed patent), which means it expires in 2014.
Of course, the later-filed patent has a patent term adjustment of about four years, so it actually expires in 2018.
I hope this clears things up for you. ;)
More than everyone = Everyone and his dog.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
"Last I checked, the browser technology (specifically Javascript) available now wasn't even conseived in 1944."
Not as such, but Vannevar Bush was getting close. Does microfilm count as prior art?
You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
Sadly, no. An actual working prototype is not needed to file for a patent. All you really need (I'm no patent lawyer) is a fairly detailed description of an idea. You also need to search for any ideas similar to yours. If applicable you may need to reference them as works.
I believe the only way this can be overturned is if there is evidence of prior art - (possibly) a working implementation of the idea before the patent was filed.
Also, it's not any particular implementation that they are going after, it is the general "method" of how plugins work within the browser that is the violation.
At a significant mark-down. I used to be billed at $200 an hour for our clients, but saw about $50 of that. This is obviously an extreme case and ignores things like marketing, R&D and a huge support network, but a similar case happens even in small businesses, where I do everything - from R&D to marketing to support to sales to support to business development... you get the idea.
Yes, there's the obvious answer that I could venture out for myself, and take all the cash for myself. The problem is that this is a) inefficient, and b) not my temperament.
So yes, capitalism relies on undervaluing work done at the bottom to reward the top of the pyramid. If that wasn't the case, the US would not be able to afford its lavish lifestyle.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Even if you don't get formal training, the company still has to suffer for those first few weeks when you're not acquainted with the system and are thus not as productive as a full employee.
And lets all remember Orwell was in fact a socialist. He even went to fight the the fascists in the spanish civil war.
George Orwell was an ardent socialist you ignorant fool. He went to Spain to fight the fascists.
Communism did none of those things, totalitarian states did. Do you blame capitalism for the death squads the Shah of Iran used after the CIA put him back in power?
Would you like diet education? because it looks like that is what you got.
Maslow's first level is breathing, food, water, etc. His second level includes employment, health, and property.
He assumes you actually have a functional society before you start wondering about self-esteem and stuff.
Sure, he doesn't say we should build a social Utopia provided by a magically government. But, he would probably say that a Feudal system, for example, wouldn't even have his top two D-needs.
In fact, I'm betting that before Microsoft payed half a billion dollars to settle the suit, they probably scoured the world for invalidating prior art.
Established companies knowingly pay huge amounts on dubious claims just to raise the barrier to entry of their turf. In the long run 0.5 bill is not a big sum for Microsoft. Further there are likely to be silent undisclosed deals specifying that a huge portion of the pay out should be used exclusively to enforce the widest claims of the patent on all violations fingered by Microsoft. There is a precedent for that.
A bunch of automobile manufacturers voluntarily recognized a dubious patent, bought the patent and used it to shut down competition. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_Licensed_Automobile_Manufacturers
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
I think there's a good argument that a javascript engine isn't "separate" from the browser these days. It's so tightly integrated that the end user certainly can't pry it apart.
That's true for a lot of Web rendering engines, but not for all of them. The WebKit HTML renderer is decoupled from the Javascript engine, and can use JSCore (Safari) or V8 (Chrome) as a JS backend. And Firefox tries to keep SpiderMonkey separated from the rest of Gecko.
You know, HyperCard? The program that in 1986 allowed you to "embed external content in a hypermedia document". Eight years before you filed this patent.
In the late 80's did a photo/video search interface in HyperCard that pulled visual content from an external database program (4D), as well as interacting with a full-text index apllication over a network running on a PC.
Hear's to hoping that Apple spanks them by filing for a re-examination of their patent.
No sig, sorry.
http://www.w3.org/2003/10/27-rogan.html
No need for scouring, Tim Berners-Lee already did it.
I made a webapp in early 2001 that used both AJAX (with a hidden frame for client-server communication, rather than an XHR) and a Java applet. It was used to create presentations from within a web browser. The Java applet was used for laying out a presentation slide, providing the user with the capability to create/position elements of the presentation (text, images, and so forth). The app was operational more than a year before the filing date of US7599985.
The application made use of Netscape's LiveConnect (an old Java/JavaScript communication API) to do this. LiveConnect was introduced in 1997, with Netscape 4. As far as I can see, LiveConnect was designed to enable what this patent claims to invent.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LiveConnect and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netscape_Navigator
"one of which (the '906) was successfully used in litigation against Microsoft Corp for a $565 million judgement." (sic)
This isn't clear from the article, but other sources indicate that the judgment in question was overturned on appeal, and the case then settled out of court, presumably, for a lesser, but still staggering amount of money.
What do you mean not allowed to be awarded software patents? I know many Canucks with software patents from the USPTO.
There is a legal term for this... Oh yes, negligence.
There's a better word: laches. It's the word that a lot of Slashdot posers who think they know the difference between a copyright and a trademark forget about. Laches is an equitable estoppel for a plaintiff's delay in bringing legal action where such delay harms the defendant.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Companies are concerned with the bottom line. They care NOTHING about the welfare of citizens, whereas the government presumably should. Therefore, things that are of public interest, such as safety (military, FDA), and basic needs (water, power, sewage) SHOULD be controlled by the government, and *are* in a normally functioning society. Because if you privatize these things, safety and basic human needs will ultimately begin to suffer through companies trying to eek out every bit of profit.
Tesla once wanted to deliver free electricity by wireless means. JP Morgan told him he cannot fund it because there is "nowhere to put the meter."
Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine -- Robert C. Gallagher
People like you, who slash holes in the support network whenever they can. If he ventures out alone, there is basically nothing to catch him if he fails. When that's weighed against the less efficient (for him) but safer alternative of sticking with this current crappy job, it's really a no-brainer. Certain monotony vs the chance to lose everything? What kind of fool would choose the latter?
Depends. First, does your app meet the requirements of one of the sections of 35 U.S.C. 102 or 35. U.S.C. 103? Note that "known or used by others" in 102(a) requires public use. Second, does your app, perhaps combined with other prior art, perform ALL the steps of one of the patent claims? Looking at claim 1 of the '906 patent for instance I'd guess not, based on your description. Third, can you show that your app predates the date of conception of the '906 patent? That was filed in 1994, the date of conception could be substantially earlier.
If you can show all these things, congratulations, you may have found prior art! Now send it to the PTO for re-exam so Eolas can slightly amend a few claims and get around it. Aren't patents great?
Why yes, as a matter of fact I am a patent attorney. How'd you know?
Doesn't matter. One does need to show actual possession of an invention to qualify for a patent. A patentee must show reduction to practice, which can be actual or constructive. Actual RTP is possession of the invention. Constructive RTP is describing the invention in enough detail that one of ordinary skill in the art can implement it. This can be done without ever actually constructing the invention.
If this seems ridiculously lenient, consider designing a new jumbo jet that will take 10 years to actually build. Or the garage inventor who can't afford a fab plant to build his new microchip. There are cases where actual possession is an unreasonable requirement.
Yes I am a patent attorney.
I was a Vantive user and was involved in rolling out their support application in a tech support shop way back in the day prior to the web really getting rolling. Their original client server technology stored the presentation layer and validation bits of the application in the database and then the client would interpret that downloaded code. It meant that just like AJAX you very rarely had to update your client and the UI was generally snappy. That was in 95 and I think it had been around for a number of years even then. Vantive was bought by Peoplesoft and then swallowed by Oracle, I'm quite surprised that MS wasn't able to get the patent invalidated but maybe they didn't know about Vantive.
You are thinking of Trademarks. Patents do not have this clause.
Request a Linux Shockwave player here: http://www.macromedia.com/support/email/wishform/
George Orwell WAS once a communist, and went to Spain to fight the civil war on the non-fascist side. However, he was getting more and more disillusioned with communism (and seeing the actual Socialist/Comunist/Anarchist government in Spain removed some more of his illusions regarding communism). When he wrote 1984 and Animal Farm he was no communist, and those are anti-totalitarian texts, but mainly Animal Farm is also virulently anti-stalinist.
Because a failed state of communism is now equivalent to socialist ideas? .... I think people in finland would be surprised if you told them that they supposedly waited for 12hours to buy toilet paper.
Anyways, it is a lame fucking argument at best. And complete bullshit at worst.