Microsoft to alter Web browser to comply with court ruling

Associated Press | October 6, 2003

[HAL9000]

REDMOND, Washington (AP) -- Microsoft Corp. said it will make technical adjustments to its Web browsing software as a result of an August ruling that the software giant infringed on a patent licensed by Eolas Technologies Inc.

Microsoft, which is appealing the ruling and the $520 million federal jury award to Eolas, said Monday the changes will be built into new shipments of Internet Explorer - which comes with the Windows operating system - starting next year.

The browser adjustments are designed to stop Microsoft from infringing on a patent owned by the University of California and licensed exclusively to Eolas. The patent covers technology which allows Web page authors to embed and automatically start certain specialized interactive programs.

The technology allowed for the embedding of small interactive programs such as "plug-ins" or "applets," into World Wide Web documents. Such programs are central today to online commerce as they power everything from banner ads to interactive customer service.

The Explorer changes will mean an extra step for Web surfers who come to a site that employs one of the specialized programs. They will be prompted with a dialogue box asking them to allow the specialized program to run, said Michael Wallent, general manager of the Windows Client Platform.

However, Microsoft also on Monday released suggestions for how Web site authors can update their sites and avoid infringing on the Eolas patent so that users don't have to see the extra prompt, he said. Other companies, including RealNetworks Inc. and Apple Computer Inc., are similarly advising their developers on how to avoid infringing on the Eolas patent.

Copyright 2003 Associated Press, All rights reserved

[GeronL]

bump

[supercat]

Everybody is going to hate these "workarounds".

No kidding, but I wouldn't blame Microsoft for this one. After all, if they did license this technology, web designers would still have to redo their pages for anyone using other browsers anyway.

I see another approach: a DLL which looks for a certain application attempt to open an alert and simply bypasses it.

[Coral Snake]

Actually I came up with an idea I was presenting on several tech boards before meeting up with "Top Speed" (Golden Eagle) and becomming an anti Linux troll concerning a way the FOSS community themselves could fight software patenting in a lot of cases. So I will present it here and see what the FOSS and anti software patent crowd here think of it.

It basically consists of dumping the LGPL and and replacing it with double licensing programmer's libraries with the regular GPL and a second license that allows closed source proprietary use under the following conditions.

1. That the closed source user donates all his existing software patents if any to the public domain.

2. That he never tries to apply for any software patent other than a company trademark. (I still see HARDWARE and non computer related patents as legitimate and they would be exempt from this section.)

3. That he never takes part as a plaintif in any software patent related lawsuit.

4. That if he violates these terms the second license is revoked for him and any software he distributes using the library in question must then be distributed ONLY as full Free Software under the terms of the GPL or he must cease and desist in its distribution.

[Nick Danger]

As an aside, I have switched from Real Media to Flash for video presentation.

Apparently anything loaded with OBJECT or EMBED tags can come under this patent, and that includes Flash. I use a lot of Flash myself, so I'm watching this with some interest. Macromedia has a page up about the changes that might be coming.