Slashdot Mirror
Invalidation of Eolas's Web Patent Claims Upheld
New submitter Ajay Anand writes with news that Eolas's web patents are really dead (the infamous browser plugin patent that forced Internet Explorer to change how it activated plugins). After Eolas sued a number of companies, last fall a jury found the patents invalid; Eolas naturally mounted an appeal. But a panel of judges simply affirmed the jury decision (PDF). A quiet ending to a decade of patent trolling.
The patent was the poster child for "obvious patent". The reason they were so successful in court was that everyone who created a web browser added similar functionality. The standard response to this is "of course it's obvious in hindsight", but the court case shows that someone implemented the idea before Eolas, putting the nail in the coffin of that train of thought.