'Eolas' Browser Plug-in Patent Case Rises Again

eldavojohn writes "A legal battle that has been around since 1999 and seemingly ended in 2005 now rears its head again. In a confusing move, the USPTO 'reissued a Microsoft patent last week covering the same concepts outlined in the Eolas patent and with wording mirroring that of the Eolas patent. With both companies holding identical patents, the USPTO will now play King Solomon and decide which parent gets custody of the baby.' Both the Microsoft & Eolas patents are available online."

In other news ...

[WrongSizeGlass]

... the USPTO issued itself a patent on issuing Identical patents. This new patent, along with its other patents for issuing Holy Crap Obvious patents and Why Not patents will now allow it to sue itself under the latest incarnation of the Recursive Rules of Litigation.

Choose your weapons

[AP2k]

To the death in a Roman Coliseum?

Re:I vote we cut them in half!

[Anonymous Coward]

What a load of garbage, I don't even know where to start with that bogus claim.

IsNot Patent

[Nom du Keyboard]

Eolas: It's the same patent!
Microsoft: IsNot!
Eolas: How can you say it IsNot the same patent?
Microsoft: because we've patented IsNot, [slashdot.org], which means we can say it, and you can't!
Eolas: IsNot IsNot IsNot!
Microsoft: Lawyers!!!

Re:USPTO makes the ruling?

[trolltalk.com]

No, they'll both get revoked because SCO will claim to have some sort of "prior art" to hijacking patents.

Re:Two possibilities

[marcello_dl]

lemme guess, somebody patented enumerating three possibilities with a summary stating there are three possibilities, so you had to work around that.