If you thought the Eolator http://www.quasimondo.com/eolator.php was through because the Eolas patent has been nullified!
You're Wrong!!!
...and I learned otherwise when a client asked my company to look into the Eolas v. Microsoft case. Using a team of slick attorneys, a high-paid expert witness, and a broadly worded patent claiming ownership of browser plug-ins, Eolas was able to beat more than half a billion dollars out of Microsoft in court. Fortunately, the Web community, led by Tim Berners-Lee, presented prior art that undermined the patent’s novelty, forcing the Patent and Trademark Office to reexamine the patent. In the first step of the reexamination process, the PTO saw the light and agreed with the community’s opinion that the patent should never have been granted (or should have at least borne the label “As seen on WWW-Talk”).
With the matter apparently headed toward a reasonable resolution, people have stopped following the case. But this monster isn’t dead! Outside the lens of public scrutiny, Eolas and the unwitting PTO are like Frankenstein and Igor—working surreptitiously to revive the patent most people thought was long buried. In the process, Eolas is presenting arguments that both fly in the face of common sense and contradict key positions they took during trial. Worse yet, the PTO seems to be buying it (“Yeth, Doctor!”).
Just like the stalwart peasantry who are always ready with pitchfork and firebrand, we of the Internet community must rise up and smite this horrible creation. In all seriousness, reading this analysis will surely send shivers down your spine and compel you to add your voice to the protest urging the PTO to evaluate Eolas’ seduction with a critical eye. In doing so, the PTO will find that they are being misled by arguments that suspend the application of common sense, disagree with the documented history of the web, defy commonly accepted principles of computing and contradict Eolas’ own trial testimony.
Check out http://www.iticentral.com/906Full.html
