Internet Explorer Eolas Patent Suit

March 2004:

In a very rare, but not unprecedented move, the US Patent Office has nullified a contentious technology patent. A spin off from the University of California, but described as a "one man operation", Eolas last year won $521 million from Microsoft for breach of what the former describes as its "web application platform". US Patent 5,838,906, granted in 1998, protects the execution of remote code embedded in hypertext pages.

The decision by an Illinois court to award the verdict to Eolas last year was widely condemned across the industry, and co-inventor of the World Wide Web Tim Berners Lee [TimBernersLee] said the decision would "impair the usability of the Web for hundreds of millions of individuals in the United States and around the world." Microsoft had already promised to modify Internet Explorer code, although an injunction last month allowed it to wait until the Patent Office's review process was complete. Eolas Technologies has 60 days to appeal.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/03/05/eolas_web_patent_nullified/

The text below is from http://www.micro-opt.com/. Somehow I think MS's appeal will succeed.

It lost that appeal, but won on a different front:

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT THAT WILL AFFECT THE ENTIRE INTERNET!

In October 2003, Microsoft announced a radical change to 2004 versions of the Internet Explorer (IE) browser. New versions of Microsoft IE will no longer automatically play embedded Flash, video, or music files. The seamless user experience visitors expect - will be gone. Instead, visitors won't see your embedded content unless they agree to do so. Affected versions of IE will first display a dialogue box like this one before playing your active content:

The Dialogue Box Of Doom

DMX Zone writer Bruce Lawson coined a great name for it - the "Dialogue Box of Doom" - and he's not exaggerating.

This is all happening because the legal patent dispute at the heart of this change applies to embedded applications that "automatically" open in the browser. As Microsoft sees it, the application isn't opening automatically if visitors have to agree to view it. But what scares Web site owners is the good chance that the applications may never get opened. Spooked visitors may use their click to leave the site rather than view more of it.

Tim Berners-Lee [TimBernersLee], inventor of the World Wide Web, offered a stark description of the change, saying it:

"... would render millions of web pages and many products of independent software developers incompatible." A Controversial Patent Dispute

This change is due to a patent suit brought against Microsoft by a company named Eolas. The name is an acronym for "Embedded Object Links Across Systems." Basically, Eolas claims to own (along with the University of California) the patent for the technology that allows browsers to automatically launch external files like Flash, RealPlayer, MP3, and PDF.

Microsoft argued in court that the technology it uses is different from that developed by Eolas. However, the US District Court for Northern Illinois disagreed and ordered Microsoft to pay Eolas $527 million in damages. In addition, Eolas asked that Microsoft pay it a licensing fee each time an embedded object is launched in Explorer. Not surprisingly, Microsoft refused that demand and so is making changes to new versions of Explorer due out in early 2004.

See http://msdn.microsoft.com/ieupdate/default.asp for latest news on this patent suit.

I dont know. Either way, this is just exactly the problem that occurs with SoftwarePatents.

UPDATE: Microsoft has announced that it would hold off on the "minor changes" it would need to make to Internet Explorer in order to comply with the adverse ruling it received in the the Eolas case. According to the statement, Microsoft intends to hold off on making the changes until after any appeals, partly because of the possible revocation of the patent in question.

"Independent of the actions of the trial court in the Eolas lawsuit, the Commissioner of the Patent Office has announced that the Patent Office has determined that there are substantial questions concerning the validity of the Eolas patent. The action by the Patent Office may result in the cancellation of the Eolas patent. Given these circumstances, and after consulting industry colleagues and developers, Microsoft, for now, will not be releasing an update to Internet Explorer and does not plan on making the changes it announced in October to Windows XP Service Pack 2."

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2004/jan04/01-29EolasWaitPR.asp

CategoryLegal