Eolas wants Microsoft to stop browser distribution

ZDNet-UK ^ | October 09, 2003, 09:00 BST | Paul Festa

[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.

[N3WBI3]

Not at all Dell could remove IE from its image and ship Opera, Mozilla, or any number of browsers..

[Nick Danger]

No, driver, don't stop. There's nothing we can do. Just keep going.

[Peelod]

I think burst.com is trying to do the same thing regarding streaming/bursting video in Windows Media Player 9.

FR had a thread on the topic a few months ago.

[NotQuiteCricket]

I've seen other articles on this suit (post-dating this one from October), one seemed to definitively refute the patent with prior art...I didn't post it here, because there didn't seem to be any interest.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Opera, Mozilla, etc. would have the same trouble.

[HiTech RedNeck]

In internet related patents, I believe there needs to be something akin to the music industry's "compulsory licensing." I.e. if the patentor or his licensee ever uses the patent in commerce, then he must license it to all comers, short of executing a deliberately cumbersome legal procedure on a case by case basis that requires a trial to adjudicate. Otherwise we continue to flirt with a situation like this, where someone tries to grab the entire internet by the tail and throw it down.