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Posted on 10/13/2003 2:27:23 PM PDT by NotQuiteCricket
Eolas Technologies, which has the rights to a browser plug-in patent, has filed a motion to permanently stop Microsoft distributing Internet Explorer browsers that infringe the patent
Eolas Technologies on Monday filed a motion to permanently enjoin Microsoft's distribution of its Internet Explorer browser amid a flurry of court filings by both sides in the pivotal patent infringement case.
Eolas, the sole licensee and sublicensor of a browser plug-in patent owned by the University of California, asked the US District Court in Chicago for an injunction against distributing copies of IE capable of running plug-in applications in a way the Eolas patent covers.
"If they're not going to pony up and take a licence under the patent, then they shouldn't be using it," Martin Lueck of Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi said in an interview.
The Eolas patent infringement victory has rattled the Web since it was handed down in August. In its verdict, a jury found that Microsoft's IE browser infringed on an Eolas patent that describes how a browser opens external applications of the type Macromedia, Adobe Systems, RealNetworks, Apple Computer, Sun Microsystems and many other software providers produce.
Microsoft and the plug-in vendors aren't the only ones who are losing sleep over Eolas.
Web developers face the possibility of having to significantly rewrite their pages or strip them of commonly used technologies like Macromedia's Flash. And other browser makers, including Opera Software and two open-source development projects relied upon by companies like Hewlett-Packard and Apple, also face an uncertain future in terms of their plug-in technologies.
Lueck said Eolas would still permit Microsoft to distribute IE as is, as long as it's being used in conjunction with an application provider or a corporate intranet that has an Eolas plug-in licence.
So far, Eolas has not granted any such licences.
Lueck also noted that, should the motion be granted, Microsoft still could distribute IE with the plug-in capability disabled.
Microsoft said it is well on its way to side-stepping both the patent and a potential injunction with an IE alteration it previewed Monday -- a version it expects to introduce early next year.
The previewed alteration would change the way IE renders pages that use ActiveX Controls to launch plug-ins. Microsoft also recommended to developers some methods of invoking external applications in a way it claims would circumvent the patented plug-in method.
Lueck and Eolas founder Mike Doyle said they were in the process of examining the IE preview and would not comment on its merits.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.zdnet.co.uk ...
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FreeRepublic , LLC PO BOX 9771 FRESNO, CA 93794
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Technology has come a long, long, long, long, LONG way since then.
If you disagree with that statement, then we have nothing further to talk about because I have learned it is a waste of time to discuss anything with dishonest people.
Human nature has not changed much, but technology now pervades everything we do.
Maybe innovation needed to be protected from competition in the days of the founding fathers, and maybe it didn't. Maybe "intellectual property" laws were just another obstacle that the American spirit overcame.
It is now possible to patent mathematical algorithms.
How far do you think the world would have progressed if Pythagoras had been able to patent his Theorem and collect royalties in perpetuity anytime geometry was used to solve an engineering problem?
The paperwork alone would have ground everything to a halt, much as keeping track of Microsoft licenses is a nightmare in a company with a few thousand PCs.
The ability to dispense with the expensive process of tracking licenses is going to move a lot of companies to open source in the next few years. It's already happening.
The people you would like to enslave with IP laws will find a way around them whether you like it or not. It's a derivative of one of the basic laws of thermodynamics.
A program is a machine, just one that works only in the particular environment of a computer... like a boat works on water and nowhere else.
Corporate intranet users don't need to buy a license. Microsoft has agreed to pay the full legal bills of all their customers. Just keep using the old Internet Explorer and send the bill to Microsoft.
Awww...he's just a little guy. Microsoft shouldn't worry about him.
That's a rather poor example, because patents are not and never have been issued in perpetuity (at least not in the US - I can't speak for ancient Greece).
The whole rationale behind granting of patents is that there is an explicitly-stated trade, which is intended to benefit both parties, the inventor(s) and the public - the "founders" clearly understood that, and the passage of time has not invalidated that understanding. The inventor gets an exclusive, for a limited period of time, during which time he can prevent others from using the patented material. In return for that, the inventor must fully disclose the invention to the public. So, after a period of time goes by, the invention is in the public domain. That's very different from locking something up in perpetuity.
Copyright is quite a bit longer, but copyright laws are entirely different from patent laws.
My objection to the Eolas patent is that it was wrongly granted - there is prior art which should have invalidated it and prevented it from issuing in the first place. I suspect that another round or two in court will settle things. I also suspect that Eolas believes that to be the case as well, and so they are going to try very hard to milk it for hundreds of millions of dollars as soon as possible, in the hopes that they can grab a windfall before their patent is invalidated and it becomes worthless. Not all that different from the "take the money and run" philosophy behind the SCO-Linux dustup. IMHO it's only a matter of time before both of them get their comeuppance.
Copyright has been extended over twenty times, the last time so Mickey Mouse would not go into the public domain.
The same thing is going to happen to patents.
There is no difference between eternal copyright/patent and extending the term every time one is about to expire.
When you have the Patent Office granting patents on double clicking an icon to make a purchase, the abuse has reached an apex and it is time for the party to be over.
What exactly is being claimed? The concept of having code resources (separate from the application) manage an area within a window goes back to the original Macintosh which debuted in 1984. I don't know when Macintosh applications first made use of this ability, but certainly ResEdit plug-ins did so; all the necessary hooks existed from System 1.0. To be sure, some of these hooks made an excellent breeding ground for viruses and consequently anti-virus software had to limit some of the cool things that could otherwise be done, but those abilities go way back.
Can anyone explain what exactly Eolas is claiming they did which hadn't been done before?
That's just throwing out the baby with the bath water, to repeat a timeworn cliche. The answer is to reform the system, not to destroy it.
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