Microsoft fought a patent battle with Eolas for many years, with a number of twists and turns that made Days of our Lives look like a beginner soapy. Eolas originally sued Microsoft for infringement based on their patent ‘906 in 1998, which describes a method for 3rd party browser plugins to run various forms of media as an embedded object. Eolas targeted Microsoft’s ActiveX implementation in Internet Explorer. The USPTO had invalidated the patent in 2004 but later reverted the decision and upheld the patent ( huh???? ). And in 2007, Microsoft had to settle. To the tune of $585mill … that’s no small chunk of change.
Now Eolas is going after another 23 companies regarding the same patent ( + an additional one [ ‘985 ] that “allows websites to add fully-interactive embedded applications to their online offerings through the use of plug-in and AJAX.” ). Some of the targets are very high profile including Apple, Google, Adobe and others. So two choices for all of the defendants: fight the suit or enter into a licensing agreement. Seeing as the patent has been upheld a number of times, it’s probably prudent to license. But the other side of the coin is that a single company now has control over a significant set of functions in the web world ( in the USA at least, we in the civilised world of course aren’t affected too much by the silly antics of the USPTO ).
This all brings us back to the poor notion of patenting software/artistic methods – they just shouldn’t be allowed. It’s a war out there and it’s time for some of the big hitters including Microsoft to turn things around and fight for the abolishment of software patents. It may hurt them in the short term, but they’ll definitely save a bunch of change in patent suits.
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One response to “Patents – Eolas strikes again”
Oh wow, somebody needs to get their heads examined. I can’t believe the first patent survived so much legal scrutiny. Makes me think that the second, even more absurd one, will do so too. Geeze, talk about stifling progress.