Forum Moderators: open
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 $520.6 million in damages.
[infoworld.com...]
Greetings,
Herenvardö (note: this name is not patented ;))
What would you do if you were in MS shoes?
Me. (I HAVE decided to patent this name. You ALL owe me MONEY!)
Hmmmm.... sounds familiar.
But now... I don't know. I don't want this to carry through, but I don't want the above to be as possible as it is.
Running with some ideas of getting around this...
browser recognises file type (and not by means of html code), opens new browser window for which compiled code runs media code...
or...
creates new window inside iframe.
iframe could have visible property changed accordingly...
There will be ways of getting around this.
Patents are like promises, made to be broken.
I'm in MS' side in this case
Greetings,
Herenvardö
PS: Has anyone here read the DragonLance? I feel like Paladine aiding Takhisis to face Caos.
[edited by: Herenvardo at 11:51 am (utc) on Jan. 31, 2004]
Server side Java should not be affected, but client side will be. From what I understand, the user must click on something in order for Java/Flash to work. I imagine JavaScript will not have the facility to click on the option, so there may not be a way around it.
From what I understand, the user must click on something in order for Java/Flash to work.
Greetings,
Herenvardö
Greetings,
Herenvardö
If I were in M$ shoes ...
If I was Bill Gates, I would buy the b**tards out,
close the shop and fire all the employees.
How dare anybody sue Microsoft.
Wow, power really does corrupt :)
Herenvardo, some remarks:
* I'm not so sure about swf being completely proprietary. Flash animations can also be created with Swish, RoboDemo, A4Desk, ..., and even with PHP.
* yes, there are plugins for Linux as well (can be downloaded from the Macromedia site).
Returning to the topic:
If Eolas wins the case, what may happen? They will be the only ones who can use plugins like Flash player, Acrobat reader, Media player... Will Macromedia, Adobe, MS... allow that? This discussion won't end in the courts, but in the web. If plugins come to be usable only with one browser (if Eolas wins and nobody else can use plug-ins), who will waste her/his time to make plug-ins?
And even going further and returning to Flash and Java... Java would survive: the Java runtime is normally integrated inside the browser, it's not a plug-in. Then, it will be as easy as creating java applets that open the files normally opened by plug-ins... the applet can be in a website together with the file to open or, with some work, the browser could have the applets' bytecodes ready to work with the files met in the web.
And at last, the last solution. It's only a partiall solution, but it's the best choice for MS. They can make use of one of their bests ideas (one of the few things MS has done well)... I speak 'bout OLE. An OLE server is not a browser plug-in, is a program (or a part of a program) that can be used by any other program compatible with that technology (an OLE client). More accurattely, most IE's plug-ins (if not all) are actually OLE servers, and IE is an OLE client (IE is also an OLE server, but this goes completely out of topic).
So MS do not need to care about Eolas patent. They can simply run OLE objects from IE.
And for everybody else can make a little more effort and work on Java.
Remember that Java is written in Java, and it makes it open.
Greetings,
Herenvardö
At the moment that it still true. But with this case overhanging MS, things will need to be changed. I heard that the user will have to manually start any plug-ins that violate EOLAS patent - which include Flash and Java Applets.
> I've worked with JAVA applets and there is a mistake here. If a HTML file has an applet tag (client-side java), it's loaded and run without user action.
At the moment that it still true. But with this case overhanging MS, things will need to be changed. I heard that the user will have to manually start any plug-ins that violate EOLAS patent - which include Flash and Java Applets.
Greetings,
Herenvardö
PS: I don't wan't to be repetitive, but is Java a plug-in? ;)
I'm sure that if Java is considered a plugin then another technology will be created or manipulated that works around it - there always is - always a loophole.
Has it not already happened? Wasn't this the case with Microsoft using Netscapes tags to embed (include) Flash - I may be wrong on the companies and products but I do remember that such a case has already happened. Just an example of a loop hole.
I'm sure that Macromedia and the likes will work with the browser developers to create something to get around this, it wouldn't be that hard for companies of that calibre and intellectual resources.
Soo... no need to panic folks, we all win while they spend their millions in court and then come up with an alternative solution in the process...
news.com.com/2100-1023_3-5171073.html?tag=nefd_top
see:
[webmasterworld.com...]
This patent dispute is far from over. The upper limit that Microsoft can lose is now set.
Intellectual Property can be handled by copyright as well as by patent. The SCO case alleges IBM infringed on copyrights. This case is about Microsoft infringing on a patent. Expect more cases to emerge on concerning Itellectual Property. Both these cases are very important because they can end up deminishing everyones Intellectual Property rights.
deminishing everyones Intellectual Property rights
Acutally, I feel it might be time for us to see that happen. The whole area of intellectual property has grown to the point where it begins to hamper creativity and innovation.
In our current climate, Bach would have held rights to the musical scale he invented (the one a piano uses) and no one would be able to write the kind of music we enjoy today without paying old Johann an arm and a leg.
If you really feel it's okay for me to clone your site, sticky me your URL because I want to start to earn some important money.
I think the current excesses are pretty well documented in many areas. A lot of greed masquerades as IP rights, and currently gets legal support.
Ok.
BASIC: Had been around for years before Microsoft. Bill essentially ported it, and a nifty compiler, for the new IBM PCs that were in development.
MSDOS: Wasn't written by Bill, or anyone else in Microsoft. When Gates tried to pitch his BASIC editor and compiler to IBM, IBM said: "Gee, that's swell kid. But what we really need is an OS. Go have some cookies and milk and buzz off." Bill, went home to pout and tinker with his BASIC editor and Compiler, that IBM didn't want. When he booted up his machine, he had an epiphany. Well, sort've. What happened was he saw that the OS he was using was called QDOS (short for "Quick and Dirty Operating System, I sh*t you not), and that it was shareware. Being a good citizen, Bill remembered he hadn't "donated" anything to the shareware creator of QDOS. He promptly hit his old man (a lawyer), for 100G, which he "donated" to the writer of QDOS, in return for all rights to the software in perpetuity. After some very minor recoding, (mostly to do with taking out the shareare notice on the boot up and replacing it with Microsoft Copyright notices), Bill then turned around and licensed MSDOS to IBM, and everyone else he could, and legend was born.
Excel: A pretty damned good spreadsheet, admittedly, but like Lotus 1-2-3 before it, and in fact, pretty much every other electronic spreadsheet in existence, uses the Visicalc core algorythims. Visical was created by Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston, and was the first electronic spreadsheet. Dan and Bob, a couple of friendly University Professors, thought they'd created something pretty cool, so they promptly distributed the software to everyone who wanted it, free of charge, and didn't bother copyrighting it, because they thought it was something to usefull to be constrained by copyrights. (Ooops)
I could go on and on. Pretty much every piece of software M$ has come out with, owes its existence, in large part, to code the begged, borrowed, or outright stolen from others. Seeing them have to pay up 520 million to someone who's patent they infringed, won't cause me to shed a tear. Not one.
The sad thing is, they won't pay a dime of it. To many other companies have become dependant on the plug-in technology, and it has become to pervasive, for the courts to allow the suit. Too bad for Eolas that it took 5 years for them to get the patent in the first place, and another 4 years for the case to drag out this far.
I am old enough to have lived during the period you are talking about. I began working on computers in 1964.
BASIC was developed at Dartmouth by Professors Kemeny and Kurtz using US Resource and Development grants, which put the work product in the public domain. MIT developed VM under the same kind of grants and the product emerged as a IBM Operating System still in use today.
Microsoft and others including IBM developed BASIC products leading up to the current Visual Basic 6.0 and VB.Net.
QDOS 0.10 (Quick and Dirty Operating System) is developed by Seattle Computer Products. Microsoft's Paul Allen negoiates with Seattle Computer Products' Tim Patterson, for the rights to SCP's DOS. Microsoft pays less than $100,000 for these right.
Excel developed and is much like Lotus 1-2-3. Visicalc was developed by Bricklin and Frankston as the first visual electronic spreadsheet. Visicalc sues Lotus and loses because Lotus proves that electronic spreadsheets existed long before Visicalc and the only on dozens of commerical Timesharing Ssytems. I used REPORT on LEASCO and it had the same row and column notation as Visicalc and the calculations were almost the same. It produced its output in printed format, which was the state of the art at the time. I developed a visual interface to a Hasaltine Video Monitor that allowed previewing without printing. REPORT looked like products I used on Tymshate, NCSS and Computer Science at the same time. During that period I saw the same type monitor used in dozens of applications that bore a very strong resemblance to Visicalc.
I can go on and on. I was to Xerox-PARC to see the first GUI before the LISA.
I am unsure if you are just Microsoft bashing or saying that their should be no Intelectual Property rights? Pile on Microsoft if you want but you have given no evidence that Microsoft 'stole' anything. But the arguement that all progess is built on things of the past is taught in Freshman science on High School. It isn't an NEW concept and does not do away with Intellectual Property rights.
Basically, what I meant to say was that M$ has built a lot of their success by scooping other technology cheap. I'm not entirely sure how far Eolas developped the plug in tech, but I see no reason they shouldn't be rewarded for the development, if they were "first across the finish line" at the patent office.
Too often in industry, the initial developper of a new technology sees little or no profit from their innovation, and its the corporate hounds who end up making the big bucks off it. An economist would argue there are good reasons for this (what good is an innovation unless it can be mass produced and put into the hands of the consumer?)
These same economists would also point out, however, that in the long term, monopolies don't work in favor of the economy as a whole. In the short term, maybe, because it allows a concentration of wealth and talent to further a technology. In the long term, it creates too much concentration of power and wealth, and artificially inflates the price point of the monopolized industry.
Microsoft, I would argue, has had its day. What microsoft has done over the past 20 years, has been a basically good thing. It produced a standard platform for technology to develop on. It reduced the learning curve for the end user (you just have to figure out how MS works in general, and you can figure out any of their apps), and it concentrated wealth and talent in a way to speed the development of many parts of the industry.
But the industry is, IMHO, now maturing. We've crossed the "bubble burst" that any major new shift in the economy faces, when the weak, and the scammers, get weeded out (it happened during the industrial revolution in England, the rail/transportation revolution in England and America, the automotive revolution, etc etc.)
After the burst, you tend to see, for a short time, a concetration of wealth and power in a very few key players. Then there's a slow process of new companies emerging, having learned from the mistakes of the pre-bubble companies, and capitalizing on the increasing sluggishness of the big victors.
That's about the point we're at now. And seeing MS have to fork over some of its gains to another comapny, can do nothing but help the industry as a whole. It sends a message that the small guys can still make an impact, and get rewarded for it. It helps decentralize development. And it will promote competition, which is never a bad thing.
Or I could just be talking out of my *ss again.
(PS: Glad you cleared up some of my mis-information, I'm always willing to hop on the learning curve).
