Berners-Lee Challenges 506 Patent Decision

[Marcia]

Tim Berners-Lee, Director of the World Wide Web Consortium, in a letter and fax sent to James Rogan, Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office on October 28th, points out that the technology appeared in the HTML2 specifications a year before the patent was originally granted, and that the prior art was not considered in rendering the decision.

From the Berners-Lee letter to the Patent Office [w3.org]

The '906 patent will cause cascades of incompatibility to ripple through the Web. I hope that you will take into account the fact that the material we have presented in our Section 301 filing bears directly on the validity of the '906 patent, that the merits of this prior art were not considered at trial, and that allowing the patent holder to control the use of technology required for compliance with World Wide Web standards is having a substantially disruptive effect on the Web industry and users both in the United States and around the world.

Microsoft's take on that decision

[msdn.microsoft.com...]

[chadmg]

Great post and great letter. Worthy of a front page link, as I'm sure many others are interested.

I am now in love with the W3C.

Recognizing the sensitivity of Web standards to patent licensing demands, the W3C has recently enacted a formal patent policy that requires specifications suggested for standardization to be implementable on a royalty-free basis.

None of these concerns were examined at trial in Chicago. Just as the trial court failed to consider the merits of the art we present in our Section 301 filing, it also failed to consider the large impact of its ruling on the Web. While that case was nominally a bilateral dispute between a patent holder and an alleged infringer, it should be clear now that the ruling and particularly its failure to consider relevant prior art will likely have a highly detrimental impact on the entire Web community unless you initiate reexamination of the patent..

[chadmg]

Some more interesting reads:

World Wide Web Consortium Presents US Patent Office with Evidence Invalidating Eolas Patent [w3.org]

Prior Art 301 Filing [w3.org]

[limbo]

Without the ability to call external code from within a browser window, which is the feature apparently claimed in the '906 patent but which was squarely in the prior art, the cycle of innovation on the Web would be substantially retarded.

The '906 patent will cause cascades of incompatibility to ripple through the Web

Oh dear :(

[BlueSky]

It took four years before the US government granted Michael Doyle this patent. The lawsuit against Microsoft was filed in early 1999. Where was Tim Berners-Lee for the past 10 years while all this was going on? I hope the US government asks -- why now Tim? Why didn't you raise this issue back in the mid-90's?

[chadmg]

BlueSky, I'm just speculating, but I would guess that lawyers had something to do with the W3C objections to the patent in the trial.

...the trial court failed to consider the merits of the art...

Without fully researching the matter, you can't say what was admissable in the trial, or what past attempts were made by the W3C.

Also, it would be a considerable waste of time and money to fight against issues before government ruling is even made. You try to have faith the right thing will be done first. Or at least that the multi-million dollar MS lawyers can get the job done.