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A federal judge on Wednesday upheld a jury ruling that Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer (IE) Web browser infringed on a patent owned by Eolas Technologies Inc. and the University of California, and ordered the company to pay $520.6 million in damages.
[infoworld.com...]
Not a good thing even if you don't like the company. Punishing a company over a bogus patent only hurts software developers. This also hurts web developers.
eola's patent is bogusi always thought otherwise ...kindly share some details or sticky them since the thread issue is a different one.
Pocket money to BillG - but "Yaaaay!" anyway :)
I know, it's not like the guy spends his money buying pro sports franchises or anything good for the community like that. Him and his wife just pissed seven billion away on that stupid AIDs epidemic, vaccinating millions of children against diseases, and by buying computers for low income area libraries. That scum bag.
w3.org/2003/10/27-rogan.html
[webmasterworld.com...]
Like him or loath him this may not be the best of rulings.
Stop knocking Bill, to get where he is life you have to walk all over people. At least he uses his money for the good of humanity.
I assume this is a joke.
The only change is that he's starting to grow up and realize the value of PR and the political process, eg funding the party that will help him the most, which he's been doing extensively. There's nothing good or valuable about walking over people, crushing competition, etc. as your business MO. Lots of other very good software/hardware companies have done just fine without that kind of practice, or at least not his level of that practice.
The main thing he uses his money is to try to extend the scope of his monopoly, the 'good works' are just PR designed to fool people, and reflect a tiny portion of his net worth. I guess it's worked, unless this posting is in fact a joke
Many influential people are behind MS on this one for many good reasons
Would like to know about those 'many good reasons'.
"Removing the improperly disruptive effect of this invalid patent is important not only for the future of the Web, but also for the past,"
"The '906 patent is a substantial setback for global interoperability and the success of the open Web,"
The Eolas patent covers the ability to use a plug-in, but as Tim points out there is a strong case for prior art..
For example, more than a year before the claims of the '906 patent was filed, a word processing program called Write, provided with Microsoft Windows 3.1, enabled users to embed into Write documents graphic images created with the Paint program
Why I doubt reading about influential people, good reasons, and MS?
Anyone and everyone using this "patented" technology would be open for lawsuit, and no one has the money to stand up for themselves like Microsoft does.
Not only does it open up every browser maker (including free/open source non-profits) for legal proceedings, but it affects everything we do as developers and even users.
That plugin is what makes Flash and other media content integrate seamlessly with your website. Eolas, at one point, has even attempted to claim any work arounds as infringement and expect to be paid exhorbitant yearly fees by the browser/media software creators to keep using it (something like $50million).
Microsoft will just pay up and stop supporting it, but where does that leave Mozilla, Opera, and other smaller browsers? In essence, Eolas is trying to destroy the internet as we know it by patenting technology that was public domain.
Read it in full at:
W3C sides with Microsoft against Eolas patent [infoworld.com] at Infoworld
and
W3C Presents US Patent Office with Evidence Invalidating Eolas Patent [w3.org] at w3.org
Maybe MS is fighting with the good this time. But whoever remembers what they've destroyed during the last 20 years might be a bit - uhm - shy about them.
I'm quiet now, sorry.
Maybe MS is fighting with the good this time. But whoever remembers what they've destroyed during the last 20 years might be a bit - uhm - shy about them.
Totally agree, hence my initial "Yaaay!", but having caught up on the details of the case this has quickly turned to an "Oh cr*p".
Sid
How many similar patents does micro$oft hold?
I can appreciate the irony in M$ being caught in a trap they so often threaten on others but the real problem here is the ridiculous patent system that the US has...
Hopefully they will turn this lawsuit on its head.
I see people jumping in to support MS (which is good - they need to win this round). AOL did some very good PR with the music sharing lawsuits trying to show who's side they're on - why isn't MS doing this for the general public? This lawsuit could change a lot, and you don't hear about it on the tv news.
