Feds Reject Eolas Browser Plug-In Patent 269
theodp writes "The USPTO has issued a preliminary decision invalidating Eolas' claim to Web browser technology central to a case against Microsoft, which could save the software giant more than half a billion dollars in damages. If upheld, this also means Microsoft will not be required to make changes that would have crippled IE's ability to work with plug-ins like QuickTime and Flash. Eolas has 60 days to respond to the decision. The USPTO has only invalidated 151 patents out of nearly 4 million patents awarded since 1988."
So I guess there isn't much hope for One Click? (Score:5, Insightful)
I still can't believe that a trivial use of cookies managed to get patented. I suppose this is inevitable when the patent office is run as a for-profit center.
Re:So I guess there isn't much hope for One Click? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So I guess there isn't much hope for One Click? (Score:2, Insightful)
Maybe this just means that only 151 of the stupid patents we all laugh at have been put to use against someone.
Re:So I guess there isn't much hope for One Click? (Score:5, Insightful)
And I can't believe that as many as 4 million patents have been granted since 1988. Scary.
There can't have been that many actual inventions in the last 16 years. Probably not even in the last 16 decades.
Re:So I guess there isn't much hope for One Click? (Score:4, Informative)
As such it doesn't really surprise me. Heck there are multiple patents for ketchup dispensers
Re:So I guess there isn't much hope for One Click? (Score:5, Insightful)
The point of my post was exactly that patents != inventions, which is why there are so many. My point is also that patents should be limited to actual useful inventions.
When patents are granted for trivial steps in a process or trivial items, they can prevent others from building full-fledged working inventions because the would-be inventor of the more complex and useful device now has to tangle with 50 different patent holders who each have a claim on some minor aspects of the proposed creation. Had those trivial patents not been granted, the stuff they describe likely would have been created anyway as a natural part of building the more complex and useful invention.
Re:So I guess there isn't much hope for One Click? (Score:3, Insightful)
Okay, now we both know that, for some of these frivolous patents to be getting through, the patent clerks must obviously be stupid, but...
Your condition that "patents should be limited to actual useful inventions," strikes me as incredibly impractical. I challenge you to spontaneously tell me which ideas I present to you are "actua
Where patents are invalidated (Score:5, Informative)
That's not what the story meant (but it was ambiguously worded). The report related only to patents invalidated by the Patent Office's re-examination process. That is a relatively new procedure. Many patent challenges are made in court, and those were not being counted. One of the factors dissuading would-be challengers from using the relatively new PTO patent re-examination process is that it has been perceived as not close enough to fairly balanced, and too likely to uphold the patent. Many challengers have preferred for that reason to reserve their patent challenges for federal court.
-wb-
Re:So I guess there isn't much hope for One Click? (Score:3, Insightful)
After all, if you were innocent in the first place you wouldn't have to be tried. That would, after all, mean that one could not rely on the police.
Re:So I guess there isn't much hope for One Click? (Score:3, Insightful)
The guilty have bargaining chips. Some so many that they can trade their way out of jail.
The innocent have nothing, and if convicted garner harsh, retributional sentences for failing to "repent" that which they did not do.
But hey, at least nearly anybody can swear out a criminal complaint against anybody, so what are the odds that you will ever face a criminal charge, eh? To hell with relying on the police, how about your wife/girlfriend.
Re:So I guess there isn't much hope for One Click? (Score:2, Informative)
Reexaminations (Score:2, Informative)
Re:So I guess there isn't much hope for One Click? (Score:3, Interesting)
The lesson here is that the patent office is on the side of large corporations with billions of dollars. Don't hold your breath that AOL/TW's patent will be invalidated just because many independant web developers can see that it's trivial.
Now for more (Score:4, Interesting)
No, more likely (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No, more likely (Score:5, Insightful)
(*) yes, I know Microsoft already has fewer freedoms in business due to being declared a monopoly. Let's not pollute the discussion
Re:No, more likely (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually this is the main pain point.
Patents held by companies that do business are not generally a problem. IBM and Microsoft both own a metric shit-load of patents and they don't cause a tenth of the problems that Doyle/Eolas type individual 'inventors' do.
OK Microsoft has a patent on encoding document files in XML format. Does anyone really think that they would try to enforce it? The prior art is called HTML. The only logical reason for filing that patent and many of the other recent ones is to stop a would-be Doyle doing the same.
If you think the Eolas situation is sick take a look at Lemelson, over a billion dollars extorted through a completely worthless claim. The old crook's widow bribed MIT to start an 'inventor's prize' to burnish his name. To their everlasting shame MIT took the cash.
It would be much better if the USPTO would do its job and reject the crap. One of the issues I face as an architect is that a patent holder can often play stupid games when we are agreeing a standard. It gives unfair leverage. So I end up having to file patents to stop other people doing the same to me, now I have the unfair leverage.
In about two months time there is going to be a slashdot story accusing me of all sorts of stuff because I patented every idea I could think of to stop spam. But it is the only tool I have to stop some other person doing it.
At least I know that my employer has a big interest in making the ideas unencumbered and is in no danger of being taken over or going under. But there is always the danger of a SCO type situation. SCO would never have tried the desperation suit against IBM if they still had a viable business.
Your Sig (Score:3, Funny)
What on earth does that mean?
Re:Your Sig (Score:3, Funny)
What on earth does that mean?
OK I'll rewrite it...
Re:Your Sig (Score:5, Funny)
If George Bush is complaining the sex in his marriage is always the same, the answer is not changing the constitution.
George Bush has been complaining about same sex marriages, the parent poster took this to mean marriages where the sex is always the same, a pun as it were.
Thus 'If George Bush is complaining the sex in his marriage is always the same,
He then continues with '... the answer is not changing the constitution." because George Bush has been mouthing off to anyone who will listen about how he intends on banning "same sex marriages"
Personally I am glad that we have a president who has solved so many of our major problems like the economy, terrorism and high taxes that he can now worry on trivial shit like same sex marriages. (For those humor-less anonymous cowards, yes I am being sarcastic)
Re:No, more likely (Score:4, Interesting)
I looked at the supplied patent, and it appears to me (though i'm not an expert) to only cover streaming ASF audio, and the algorithm for handling that (specifically using error correction and sliding windows, along with a few other features).
For the life of me, I can't figure out how this patent could be claimed to a patent on a file format. It seems to be a patent on the process of streaming data.
Re:No, more likely (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Now for more (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Now for more (Score:4, Insightful)
Finally... (Score:3, Funny)
I'll be the first.
*clap*
Re:Finally... (Score:2)
Win one for those crappy flash animations.
Re:Finally... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Finally... (Score:2)
yea, let's hear it for inline executeables
crackers everywhere can resume clapping
Re:Finally... (Score:2)
Re:Finally... (Score:2)
Re:Finally... (Score:2)
Re:Finally... (Score:5, Insightful)
I will agree that they did the right thing here--I don't think that that patent ever should have been granted.
However, I fear that the reexamination was triggered by Microsoft's many lawyers and massive amounts of cash, rather than any sudden desire for the USPTO to be more consumer-oriented...
What was that figure? They've only reexamined 141 out of 4+ million patents? I'd be willing to guess that there are quite a few other patents out there that never should have been granted...
Good news, bad news (Score:5, Interesting)
[this] could save the software giant more than half a billion dollars in damages
That's the good news.
Microsoft will not be required to make changes that would have crippled IE's ability to work with plug-ins like QuickTime and Flash.
That's the bad news.
Re:Good news, bad news (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Good news, bad news (Score:3, Insightful)
There are lots of invalid patents that are let stand merely because they don't annoy anyone powerful. Is this one genuinely invalid under law? IANAL. So all I can do is notice that if one guessed ahead of time based on political pull, one would have come to the correct answer. And that this method of estimating the decision often works.
so far not so good (Score:4, Interesting)
Microsoft will not be required to make changes that would have crippled IE's ability to work with plug-ins like QuickTime and Flash. Would this really matter? The government is tiptoeing through the laws with MS in any circumstance, so how long will it be before the next MS release has implemented functions that will (by default) play these filetypes on IE by default. Sure it won't be allowed to 'cripple' them, "no one said we had to use them by default". A half a billion to MS is nothing, sure it's worth saving, but for what?, to use that half billion to find a newer method of skirting the issue?
Re:Good news, bad news (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Good news, bad news (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Good news, bad news (Score:2)
Re:Good news, bad news (Score:2, Interesting)
That's shortsighted reasoning thinking of this as a 'win' for microsh*t. Our we all naive enough to think that MS can't buy themselves out of most situations that affect them in a negative fashion?
This is a win for web developers and other browser makers.
Microsoft's Response (Score:5, Informative)
Developer IE6 lead to multiple installed versions (Score:5, Informative)
This update was big news for the web design community, for other reasons. The developer's edition of IE6 (which was a modified version that contained the pop-up) revealed that Windows was able to run multiple Internet Explorer versions simultaneously [insert-title.com] by merely adding a blank text file!.
For the longest time, people thought it was impossible to run multiple versions of IE on the same machine to do testing on various browsers. It was a huge pain, and it also meant that developers were forced to use the IE version that came with the OS and not downgrade, while Netscape 4.xx to Mozilla installed fine. But now, it's possible to run IE3, IE4, IE5.01, IE5.5 SP2 and IE6 side-by-side (screenshot) [insert-title.com].
IE changes already there (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:IE changes already there (Score:2)
Microsoft and those politicians (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Microsoft and those politicians (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Microsoft and those politicians (Score:4, Informative)
There's one that immediately comes to mind: Malden Mills, the company that invented Polartec. Here's a little snippet about the president and owner from their website:
Had a chance to meet this gentleman and he is a very down-to-earth guy. Honest, truthful, caring - all the things I'd like in a boss.
well... (Score:3, Funny)
Since you put it like that I see your SCO and raise you with my SCUM [scumgroup.com]
I'm siding with Microsoft ... (Score:5, Funny)
This patent for browser plugins should have been shot down. All browsers (and many other apps) use this idea in some form and even though Eolas seemed to have a soft side for Free browsers it still sets a bad precedent to have bad patents unchallenged.
Re:I'm siding with Microsoft ... (Score:2)
It sure hurts to take Microsoft's side on an issue but sometimes they are right!
bittersweet? (Score:5, Insightful)
Time will tell whether the patent office will be willing to look reasonably at other ridiculous patents, or just ones that could cost behemoths like microsoft some money.
The irony... (Score:5, Funny)
If you want to download the full pages of a patent from the USPTO, "you must install and use a browser plug-in..."
And (Score:3, Funny)
all you need to invalidate a patent... (Score:5, Interesting)
For only about the vested interest of the entire GNP we should be able to get the other four million patents since '88 reviewed. One down, four million to go...
braddock gaskill
This is great news for anyone running a website (Score:2, Informative)
Figure the odds (Score:4, Funny)
When will we get (Score:3, Funny)
Tetris grandmaster [planning24h.jp]
Super Mario Bros 3 in 11 minutes [planning24h.jp]
Re:When will we get (Score:2)
What are you talking about? If you use Microsoft IE, I'd assume there already is a WMV plugin included... right?
Or if you're one of those Linux freaks, they can get Mplayer for Mozilla [sourceforge.net]. (As long as you stick to Intel-style CPU of course)
But remember that non-IE browsers use mimetype (rather than file extension) to determine which plugin should view a download. Since your planning24h.jp server doesn't report a mimetype for WMV, the plugin might not be invoked.
Re:When will we get (Score:2)
Not that great... (Score:5, Insightful)
The patent office went back to review this patent because of the dollar-size of the potential damage and less to do with the legitamacy of the patent. A small company would likely never see such a consideration from the patent office.
Instead, a smaller guy is most likely to face a crappy patent that is presumed valid until you spend $2-3M and 12-months to get to a markman ruling in a fedral lawsuit before a judge can even consider a summary judgement against a clearly bogus patent.
Even though the odds are about 50/50 for winning if you take a patent to court, the barrier to entry is so great for a little guy that it's not usually not possible to contest a patent.
jeff
Well... (Score:2, Insightful)
Best government that money can buy. (Score:4, Funny)
Head is going to explode! (Score:5, Funny)
Not just IE (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm... I'm.. so confused (Score:3, Funny)
Software Patents = Bad
software patents that cost M$ $,$$$,$$$ = ???
almost (Score:4, Informative)
Patents protect folks with money - any questions? (Score:2, Interesting)
Hint for the idiots at the patent office (Score:4, Insightful)
Pull your heads out of your asses and quit handing out patents like candy. You're ruining the tech industry.
Re:Hint for the idiots at the patent office (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Hint for the idiots at the patent office (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Hint for the idiots at the patent office (Score:3, Insightful)
I guess you have never read an examiner's statement for reasons of allowance?
If you had you would have known that an examiner has to search and cite art, then say how that art differs from the applicant's invention, and in particular what aspect of the applicant's invention is not found in the art, or is non-obvious.
What happens next? (Score:4, Interesting)
So, does this decision have any legal effect? Or does MS still have to win an appeal/reconsideration (which is presumably made easier by this decision)?
Re:What happens next? (Score:3, Informative)
Corruption? (Score:2)
Re:Corruption? (Score:2)
[boss comes in to office]
Boss: I hear there's a high profile patent infringement case going down at the moment. Can you check to see if we really should have issued the patent, or if we screwed it up like we seem to do so often?
[Office Juniour looks at a few bits of paper from a filing cabinet]
OJ: Doh!
This is a *good* thing!!! (Score:3, Insightful)
GJC
It makes me wonder... (Score:3, Funny)
P No. 1234567 A machine that does nothing
I hate to side with Microsoft, but ... (Score:5, Interesting)
When I first read this, my reaction was to side with Eolas against M$, because of Microsoft's long history of shady business practices. It also seems mighty convenient that this patent is being overturned at Microsoft's request. After reading more about it, however, I have come to the conclusion that the patent should not have been issued in the first place, especially with the W3C presenting evidence of proir art.
The problem here is first that the patent was awarded when there was plenty of prior art that should have invalidated. We were all badly served by that decision of the USPTO.
What is even worse, is that I doubt this patent would have been invalidated if I had challenged it, or if any small or medium-sized business had challenged it. The patent would have stayed in force until some giant corporation found it to be a nuisence.
Lately, trying to gain control over Internet related technology has been pursued with the same kind of irresponsible single minded fervor as was demonstrated by the miners during the gold rush. Everyone is racing to stake claims on everything they can lay their hands on. It's sad that our government hasn't seen fit to review how these patents are being awarded and make the needed changes at the USPTO to insure that the patents that are given out are deserved and unlikely to be overturned in the future.
Re:I hate to side with Microsoft, but ... (Score:2)
So . . . (Score:4, Interesting)
Eolas should now sue the Patent Office (Score:4, Insightful)
This is the case Eolas can make: If the grant for the patent was a vaild one, the USPTO has no right to reject the patent. The point I am making is: what's the point of registering a patent if you know that by some arbitrary decesion of the USPTO the patent can be recalled? Doesn't the USPTO know what is worthy of patenting and what is not? If it doesn't, it has no right to exist.
I don't know if one has to pay extra if the patent is accepted, I mean in addition to the patent application charges. But if one does have to pay extra after the patent has been accepted, Eolas should ask for a refund (and maybe punitive damages).
If the USPTO is not made accountable for its actions, it will continue to make arbitrary grants of patents. Hey, what have they got to lose?
Oh, by the way, I did not RTFA. I am on slashdot, right?
Re:Eolas should now sue the Patent Office (Score:5, Interesting)
Ahh. The Crux of the matter.
Having followed this for quite some time, it was clear that the patent infringed upon prior art.
The putz at Eolas was quite aware of the prior art too.
Look here [berkeley.edu] for information about the prior art
Re:Eolas should now sue the Patent Office (Score:5, Insightful)
Patents are presumed valid when applied for, and are granted unless blatant prior art is found during the few hours the examiner takes to review the patent. In essence, they rubber-stamp patents and leave it up to the courts or re-examination procedures to make a real determination of validity.
You're correct; with this mode of operation they have no right to exist.
Eolas claims this isn't over (Score:4, Interesting)
Martin Lueck, the lawyer who represented Eolas, said it was not uncommon for the patent office to invalidate a claim as the first step of a review process, but said he was confident that the patent office would ultimately uphold Eolas' claim on the Web technology.
That makes it seem as if this is far from over. I don't know much about the process. How much of a chance does Eolas really have still?
Re:Eolas claims this isn't over (Score:3, Insightful)
But it seems that revoking a patent is a pretty serious matter (since it has only been done in 151 patents), that has no relation to the standard process. So what the lawyer is saying is essentially nonsense. Given the prior art is so
Why I'm gonna... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Why I'm gonna... (Score:2)
"A process and tools for granting monopolies on the use of inventions as well as one-click-shopping and other obvious stuff on the Internet."
Sue US PTO for ... (Score:3, Interesting)
Hell, if Martha goes to jail for trying to cover her tracks to save less than 100K, then surely lots of heads should roll at the PTO. Their incompetence costs the high tech industries probably billions of dollars in unnecessary licensing for trivial patents and for legal fees.
A number of posts have suggested suing the PTO. But my question is for what and how?
Watch out Acacia.... (Score:4, Informative)
The current defendants against Acacia's DMT patent (which covers the process of downloading audio/video from a web server) will most likely get a non-infringing verdict, since it's faster and cheaper than trying to invalidate the patent in their current litigation.
When this happens, it means that the patent doesn't apply to the internet. Cable companies would be left to deal with the DMT patent, and would most likely need to file a re-exam of their own and provide prior art to the USPTO to invalidate the DMT patent.
FightThePatent.com [fightthepatent.com] provides free prior art found by volunteer searchers to defense patent attorneys.
Patent abuse cases in the audio/video realm (Acacia, SightSound, USA Video) are being tracked on the website.
If Eolas was SCO (Score:5, Funny)
But, if Eolas was SCO, they would be suing end users for infringing on their browser technology. They would claim you would owe them $6.99 every time you accessed a page with a plugin. They would be saying that the mozilla developers were theives, and that javascript plugin detection code is unconstitutional.
So it could be a whole lot worse.
This can only be a positive thing (Score:4, Interesting)
Suppose the patent was upheld and MS had to make changes to IE and pay damages. What was to stop the guy from going after the other browsers once he felt his bank account was getting a bit too low? If Microsoft weren't able to stop the patent, how would some of the other browser makers put up a fight?
The other thing is that this wasn't just MS fighting this patent, the W3C was involved as well, and all of the major players met to discuss the issue last year. I look at this as a victory for sensible thinking, not as a victory for Microsoft.
The bigger story (Score:3, Insightful)
The 906 patent was a farce, and was contradicted by numerous pieces of prior art. It's a Good Thing for everyone (except perhaps, Eolas) that this turd is thrown out.
If MS could have bought their way out of this problem, they'd have done it a long time ago. They've lost decision after decision up to this point, and were basically SOL. This was essentially the last thing that could have saved their bacon. It is very convenient for the W3C and the web as a whole that the legal might of Microsoft happened to be aligned with their purposes.
Microsoft isn't lilly white themselves -- they already have a number of dubious web-related patents of their own. But I'm still glad to see them win in this case.
Re:Well Duh . . . (Score:2)
Re:Well Duh . . . (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Well Duh . . . (Score:2, Informative)
And as the judge enformed me when I went in for jury duty, circumstantial evidence IS legally admissable evidence.
Re:Well Duh . . . (Score:5, Insightful)
Just because Microsoft has money, and this patent has initially been rejected (though the finality of that rejection remains to be seen), does not mean that Microsoft's money had anything to do with that rejection.
Plus, even under your analogy, both you and the parent poster have failed to show any track record of this type of ruling happening in the past which has been effected by the amount of money the winning party had availible.
So, I ask again: What evidence is this conclusion based on?
Re:Well Duh . . . (Score:3, Interesting)
You make it sound as though you've been told differently by someone :-) Circumstantial evidence is any evidence that doesn't come from an eyewit
Um, but this only happened once (Score:2)
Re:Well Duh . . . (Score:2)
Re:Well Duh . . . (Score:2, Insightful)
Take, for example, the DMCA. In the two year period after the DMCA was introduced to Congress, the entertainment industry's campaign contributions doubled to 18 million dolloars. Why? To get the the DMCA passed.
If you've ever listened to the LBJ Tapes on C-SPAN, you'll know that Washington is a closely knit community, a few phone calls by the right people can do wond