Posted on 11/13/2003 1:01:22 PM PST by stainlessbanner
In an unusual move, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is considering whether to revoke a patent that Internet experts claim could hobble Web browsing and online commerce.
The office's top patent-examination official has ordered a review of a patent that covers the ability of Web browsers to display multimedia content, the office confirmed on Thursday.
PTO Deputy Commissioner Stephen Kunin ordered the review after Internet engineers said the patent did not cover an original invention and would cause massive disruption for Web users, spokeswoman Brigid Quinn said.
"The director has to have received quite a bit of input from the community" to order a review, Quinn said.
The technology in question, which runs mini-applications that allow Web users to fill out forms and use other interactive features, has been at the center of a dispute between the patent owner and Microsoft Corp. , the world's largest software maker.
Privately held Eolas Technologies Inc., which owns the patent, won a $520.6 million judgment against Microsoft in August after a jury determined Microsoft had used the technology in its dominant Internet Explorer browser.
Microsoft has appealed the decision, but is currently rewriting Internet Explorer so it does not use the technology in question. The changes mean that millions of Web pages will have to be updated to work properly with the dominant browser.
The World Wide Web Consortium, which sets standards for the Web, sent the Patent Office a letter last month arguing that Eolas' technology should not enjoy patent protection because similar technologies had existed before.
Letting the patent stand would impose a huge online disruption as the technology in question lies at the heart of many Web pages, the group said.
In a little-noticed ruling dated Oct. 30, the Patent Office said such arguments were enough to launch a review.
"In view of the admitted prior art ... a substantial new question of patentability is raised as claims 1-3 and 6-8 of U.S. Patent No. 5,838,906," Kunin wrote in the order.
"We're certainly heartened by the fact that the Patent Office has decided to take a look at the patent," Microsoft spokesman Lou Gellos said. "We maintained all along that the patent was invalid."
The Patent Office review would not immediately change the company's plans to rewrite its code, Gellos said.
Eolas could not be reached for comment.
The Patent Office receives roughly 400 requests for review each year, Quinn said, but fewer than 2 percent of them come from a director. Patents placed under director-ordered review are less likely to be upheld than those coming from the public sector, she said.
The agency issues roughly 180,000 patents each year, she said.
They need to review these absurd patents on a regular basis.
But this suit has forced MS to re-write IE to require user approval before launching any app. That, I think, is a *good* thing.
I still can't believe what they'll issue a patent on, these days. The Patent office could be the death of our high-tech economy, if they aren't careful.
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