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Supreme Court Rejects Microsoft Eolas Appeal 219

Posted by Zonk from the no-love dept.
mixmasterjake writes "The U.S. Supreme Court has decided not to hear a Microsoft appeal in the software company's ongoing Web browsing patent dispute with the University of California and Eolas Technologies. The dispute arises over the Eolas patent for 'a system allowing a user of a browser program ... to access and execute an embedded program object.' From the article: "With today's decision, the Supreme Court decided not to hear Microsoft's argument relating to how damages in the case should be calculated. Microsoft had been asking the court to reject a previous ruling that damages should be awarded based on Microsoft's U.S. and foreign sales, saying that the Eolas patent should only apply to U.S. products. The Supreme Court did not give a reason for its rejection of Microsoft's appeal."
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Supreme Court Rejects Microsoft Eolas Appeal More

Supreme Court Rejects Microsoft Eolas Appeal

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  • Best. Job. Ever. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 01, 2005 @06:59PM (#13927696)
    Being a Justice on the Supreme Court is the best job ever. You can pick and choose which cases you want to hear, and you need offer no justification whatsoever!

  • Oh the Irony... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 01, 2005 @07:00PM (#13927708)
    Microsoft gets to eat it's own medicine. Maybe they'll start to realize how bad software patents really are. Patents aren't an universal tool that should be used in every field of science.

    • Re:Oh the Irony... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by jZnat ( 793348 ) on Tuesday November 01, 2005 @07:21PM (#13927879) Homepage Journal
      Scary as it is, Microsoft and other large software companies have patented software ideas and algorithms in order to make sure that no other company would go and patent the same idea and use it against them. Now they wouldn't have to waste the time and money in patenting algorithms (i.e. math equations, those of which aren't patentable anyways) if nobody patented them in the first place. It's usually a self-defence situation when patenting software, but when the company seeks out to use its patents to destroy "infringers" (see: SCO vs. Linux and IBM), that's where the problem lies. Yes, patenting software shouldn't even be a possibility, but while it is, companies need to legally defend themselves, but when they go and take the offence using their patents, that's when it becomes obvious to more than just us /. geeks that the idea of patenting software is ridiculous.

      • Re:Oh the Irony... (Score:5, Interesting)

        by mickwd ( 196449 ) on Tuesday November 01, 2005 @07:35PM (#13927983)
        "Scary as it is, Microsoft and other large software companies have patented software ideas and algorithms in order to make sure that no other company would go and patent the same idea and use it against them."

        Then why have they pushed so hard to have software patenting made legal in the EU ?

        • Re:Oh the Irony... (Score:2, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward
          Because while it's true that it's about protection, what it is protecting is not Microsoft from patent attacks, but from startups with good ideas stealing their revenue and market share. It's all about raising the cost of entry into any given market.
      • That's only part of the reason. see:
      • The SCO case is not a software patent case. SCO accused IBM of putting SCO code in Linux, in violation of copyright laws and IBM's license with SCO.
    • "Microsoft gets to eat it's own medicine. Maybe they'll start to realize how bad software patents really are."

      Quite the contrary. With that much money at stake, they'll have incentive to patent even more silly stuff. It has two uses: 1.) Sue the crap out of somebody who infringes 2.) Threaten to countersue if they're sued for infringement.

      I know quite a few people around here were hoping MS would lose this case, but the reality is that by setting this precedent, it may have done more harm than good.

  • The patent system... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by NaruVonWilkins ( 844204 ) on Tuesday November 01, 2005 @07:00PM (#13927711)
    has to be reformed. Such a basic idea shouldn't be patentable, even when it costs a giant like Microsoft.
    • ...you need to take action. You should, at the minimum, be reading:

      Both of which routinely suggest actions you can take to try to turn this thing around.


    • Yeah, but boomer MBAs fixated on quarterly results have fucked-up the American economy and corrupted the concept of long-term investment. Now pleases excuse me, I gotta go do some trading so I can buy two more 7 series BMWs. Suckers.

    • Some analysis and context is usually beneficial to all. I've seen other commenters say that they haven't seen the original patent. I always find it helpful to read as many original source documents as possible although it's obvious that some people don't agree that it's important or useful information.

      2005-10-31 21:45:58 Supreme Court Rejects Microsoft IE Patent Appeal (Index,Microsoft) (rejected)

      Reuters reports (via eWEEK) that the US Supreme Court declined to hear Microsoft's appeal of a 2003 $521 mi [eweek.com]

    • I agree with you to a certain extent.
      However, I hear /.ers say that software should not be patentable. Why is that? What is special about software that it shouldn't quality?
      Patents are there to do two things:
      1. Protect inventors who work hard on creating something new, which is sometimes easy to replicate. So that when they do succeed, sometimes after a long hard work, it is them who enjoy the fruits of their work. This is by itself a nobel cause I think.
      2. To allow (after certain number of years, dep
      • However, I hear /.ers say that software should not be patentable. Why is that? What is special about software that it shouldn't quality?

        Three main reasons:

        1) Patents protect physical inventions. Software is not a physical invention; it is the written expression of an idea. Copyright, not patent, is the appropriate area of IP law to deal with this.

        2) Most software patent fights are about algorithms, which are expressions not just of ideas, but of a specific type of ideas: mathematical formulae. Which a

  • It's Only Money (Score:3, Insightful)

    by mysqlrocks ( 783488 ) on Tuesday November 01, 2005 @07:01PM (#13927716) Homepage Journal
    Microsoft had already been dealt a $520.6 million judgement in the case two years ago

    How much does Microsoft clear in profit every month, over one billion dollars? This isn't much money to them.
    • $520 million is a huge amount to any company, even one as big as MS.
      • 520 million is a huge amount of money, especially when it needs to be liquid and not leveraged in assets.

        But let there be no doubt that Microsoft doesn't give a rat's butt about the money per se as long as they meet investor revenue growth projections and earnings per share (EPS). If those things happen then stockholders should see growth in their investment which means that the board of directors and the CEO make the bulk of their money on their own stock options. The corporate world hasn't been fuled

    • Re:It's Only Money (Score:4, Insightful)

      by The Bungi ( 221687 ) <thebungi@gmail.com> on Tuesday November 01, 2005 @07:10PM (#13927805) Homepage
      This isn't much money to them.

      What about the Mozilla foundation? Opera? KDE? Apple? Because armed with this precendent Eolas is going to go after anyone who has ever coded a browser with the ability to host an applet.

      Does it sound bad enough now?

      • Because armed with this precendent Eolas is going to go after anyone who has ever coded a browser with the ability to host an applet.

        Let me state upfront that I am not a fan have software patents. However, if other companies have violated their patent, then they need to pay up. The $520 million was based on Microsoft's profits, other companies wouldn't pay as much if they were in violation. Patents are usually pretty specific. I have a feeling that Microsoft was blatantly ripping of their technology and

        • Re:It's Only Money (Score:3, Insightful)

          by TheRaven64 ( 641858 )
          I take it you haven't read the patent. It covers ideas that were floating around as early as the 1970s, things which are so obvious that any computer scientist or engineer will come up with the same solution before you even finish explaining the problem to them - hell I came up with the same concept before I even saw a web browser because it's so mind-bogglingly obvious. No one should be able to patent things like this. The only good thing about this case is that it's likely to push Microsoft and their l
          • It covers ideas that were floating around as early as the 1970s, things which are so obvious that any computer scientist or engineer will come up with the same solution before you even finish explaining the problem to them - hell I came up with the same concept before I even saw a web browser because it's so mind-bogglingly obvious

            So you are saying that Microsoft's patent attorneys are total idiots and hopelessly incompetant, and you, personally have the One True Answer? Somehow I doubt it.
            • No, I'm saying that Microsoft's legal team have a difficult problem. They have to persuade non-computer scientists that something is obvious to someone who has little or no experience in the field (a judge). This is far from easy, because to someone without the required background the contents of the patent are non-trivial - it's only to people in the field that they are obvious.

              If you followed the case, you will see that they presented most of the relevant prior art. What they failed to do was persua

      • Maybe not, they will likely only hit M$ as they have the deep pockets and can pay up. If they tried to sue Open Source companies they wouldn't get much money! Are they are suing M$ over specific things or just "methods and concepts. Specific things are actionable, the other (IMHO) is NOT. But that is up to the courts to decide (see SCO vs IBM)

  • I know how I should feel, but... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by FirstTimeCaller ( 521493 ) on Tuesday November 01, 2005 @07:03PM (#13927732)

    Ok, this is Slashdot, and therefore anything that Microsoft does is supposed to be bad. But, I still can't bring myself to embrace obvious software patents. I did RTFA, but I have not looked at the patent itself -- so perhaps it isn't obvious. Still, I can't help but think this does not bode well for the internet in general.

    Sure MS has strong-armed some competitors in the past and probably stolen an idea or two (Stac compression comes to mind), but I would have preferred to see the patent overturned...

    • all i have to say on this.. in this case microsoft is obviously the lessser of two evils. when the US economy and government finally collapse under the accrued debt.. i hope the framers of the next constitution require intro to computer science for political candidacy. The level of technological idiocy reflected in our judges and politicians has plummeted so far under the bottom of the barrel it's actually made its way several thousand feet into the chinese sky.
      • Sorry to spoil your fun, but "intro to CompSci" is just as helpful as having MS lawyers try to teach you about computer science. I'm pretty sure that learning how to make an OOP class in C++ or Java isn't going to teach you nearly enough to be "computer literate".
      • That would result in a non-functioning government. It's like asking politicians to build you a computer.

        There are two issues at hand, and both are related. The first is the relative lack of knowledge of the average politician on anything other than politicking. Most of the politicians in office these days can win the hearts of the people with sweet words, but they have no idea WTF they're talking about the rest of the time. I'm not just talking about bible thumpers. Politicians require political savvy to re
    • There is one bright spark of hope. Microsoft lost a lot of money. Microsoft, however, still have a lot of money, and a lot of that is devoted to paying lobbyists. Anything that encourages people to fund lobbyists campaigning against software patents can't be all bad...
    • Assuming you haven't already, if you're against software patents, you probably want to vote for NoSoftwarePatents [slashdot.org] for the Europeans of the Year awards.
    • ...Stac compression comes to mind...

      Years before Stack existed I was using PowerPacker on my Amiga 500 to compress and decompress files transparently to the filesystem. So even before Stac the idea had prior art.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Absurd Patent (Score:5, Insightful)

    by orangenormal ( 728999 ) on Tuesday November 01, 2005 @07:07PM (#13927771)

    Eolas's patent, which covers web browser plugins, should never have been awarded -- let alone validated by the USPTO. As it stands, no browser that supports plugin technology is immune from Eolas, a one-man-show run by a university professor.

    The patent needs to be thrown out immediately; the amount of prior art must be staggering.

    For the future of the web, this is a case you'll want Microsoft to win, ultimately.

    • More information [wikipedia.org] on Eolas and the offending patent.

    • Re:Absurd Patent (Score:3, Insightful)

      by geekoid ( 135745 )
      "Eolas's patent, which covers web browser plugins, should never have been awarded -- let alone validated by the USPTO."

      yes it should have been. It meets all the appropriate qualifications.
      there doesn't seem to be any prior art, much less a staggering amount.

      Hopefully the folly of patenting software and business process will start to become apparent to large corporations.
      • >there doesn't seem to be any prior art, much less a staggering amount.

        Actually, there are several significant pieces of prior art. For various reasons, the USPTO and courts have decided to overlook each of them. Just because you aren't aware of them doesn't make them nonexistant. Some of us were there when all this happened, and know what a travesty this shakedown is.

        Eolas is a scam, on the order of an SCO. (Hey, did we just coin a universal unit of business scam magnitude?)

  • Microsoft's loss is Mozilla's loss (Score:5, Insightful)

    by tbo ( 35008 ) on Tuesday November 01, 2005 @07:08PM (#13927777) Journal
    I say this as someone who is no fan of Microsoft, and who is actually a student at the University of California--Microsoft's loss is bad for open source. Microsoft was simply the biggest fish Eolas could go after. Now they're going to demand royalties from all other browser makers, which could spell big trouble for Mozilla.

    I hope I'm wrong--please tell me this isn't going to kill open source web browsers.

    The UC/Eolas patent covers "a system allowing a user of a browser program ... to access and execute an embedded program object." Sounds like it would cover browser support for Java and perhaps JavaScript embedded in web pages.

    Crap.

  • This ruling is not a big deal. (Score:3, Informative)

    by Repton ( 60818 ) on Tuesday November 01, 2005 @07:09PM (#13927785) Homepage

    Ars has better coverage [arstechnica.com].

    It's a bit confusing, but as I understand things, this is the story: Eolas were awarded big damages against Microsoft based on their browser plugin patent. This patent was overturned in March 2004, which means Microsoft no longer had to pay those damages. Micosoft's appeal to SCOTUS was against those damages that it doesn't have to pay any more. So, I imagine the SCOTUS were like "WTF?" when they declined to hear the case.

    Microsoft's not totally insane, though, because the patent has been reinstated, so MS and Eolas will be going back to court, and MS might lose again and have to pay money again. So they were looking for a precedent to keep a lid on those damages which they might get.

  • w00t! Down with M$$$!!! (Score:3, Funny)

    by JordanL ( 886154 ) <jordan,ledoux&gmail,com> on Tuesday November 01, 2005 @07:09PM (#13927790) Homepage
    This is my chance! Bad news for MicroSoft! All I have to do is act giddy, (and pretend that I don't care about the larger implications of the broken patent system), and I'll be modded up! w00t!

    And now, for my sarcastic insolence, I'll be modded down. :(

    Maybe they'll cancel each other out?
  • No, really, it is!

    Maybe someone in Washington will Finally Fucking Notice (tm).

  • didn't hear cause legal question long settled (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Ok,
    in the eyes of the Courts, this question has long been settled. If I am remembering my Patent law correctly ( you patent lawyers out there please correct if wrong) trying to split the "outside world" from the U.S. is not considered, especially if those involved in the case are of U.S. "citizenship."
    This is to prevent someone from using someone else's patent for profit overseas.
    Looks like Microsoft needs some more/better patent attorneys...

  • What you get (Score:2, Interesting)

    by gnarlin ( 696263 )
    They have made their bed, and now they must lie in it. If they support software idea patents
    then they must also be willing to pay dearly to those who will do nothing but litigate
    using them.

    Sooner or later even these big companies must realise that it is more expensive in the long
    haul to support software patents when there are constantly more and more companies that
    don't make anything and are only out to litigate; and since crosslicensing with them is
    useless, since they don't make anything, all they can do i
    • Except lawsuits and regulation tend to help big corporations. Microsoft can afford a huge legal team to fight having to pay for frivolous patents, and if they do have to pay, they have the money to pay.

      A small software company, however, will be put out of buisness by these extreme patent regulation and legislation.

      Always expect the big corporation to be on the side of expanded litigation and government intervention.

  • My first reaction would be... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Trogre ( 513942 ) on Tuesday November 01, 2005 @07:29PM (#13927936) Homepage
    "I'm with Microsoft on this one". Patents on software and business practises are the greater evil here.

    However with Microsoft's extensive patent portfolio, I wonder just how hard they're trying with this case. Perhaps they intend to lose in order to set a legal precedent for software patents. Maybe Eolas has offerred them several key patents if they 'take one for the team', that would both make Eolas rich(er) and allow MS to pursue litigation against other firms.

    Let's face it, if MS did start defending all its patents and winning, they would manage to close down just about every small software house left.

  • Rather than go for the patent system in total.. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by DiamondGeezer ( 872237 ) on Tuesday November 01, 2005 @07:30PM (#13927946) Homepage
    This story is really about the invidious patenting of ideas rather than actual inventions. Such patenting of software processes is not about protecting intellectual property or a partuclar working design of some new gizmo.

    The entire point of software patents like this is to stifle innovation by preventing anybody, including Microsoft, from reverse engineering the process by any means. That's not patenting because you have a product on the market that you're trying to protect, it's a form of intellectual highway robbery by digging a big hole in the road and then charging people to cross the hole using the one bridge and the police preventing people from going around the hole.

    As far as Microsoft is concerned, I feel no sympathy. Microsoft has aggressively tried to corner and stifle competition by collecting as many of these software or business process patents as it can. Now it gets bitten by somebody else doing the same thing. "He who lives by the software patent also get shafted by the software patent"

    Microsoft should be like Earl: call it "karma" and seek to redress people for what it has done. But first, Bill Gates needs to get caught in a hit-and-run accident while holding a winning scratch card.

    Unless there is urgent action to void these "business process through software" patents, then it will be the rest of the world, China, India and especially Europe which will benefit from innovation and not the US. In America, software patents are causing the pace of innovation to slow while costing eveybody more money, and jamming up the Patent system with these mendatious patent claims.

  • No reason? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Infinityis ( 807294 ) on Tuesday November 01, 2005 @07:35PM (#13927985) Homepage
    "Microsoft had been asking the court to reject a previous ruling that damages should be awarded based on Microsoft's U.S. and foreign sales, saying that the Eolas patent should only apply to U.S. products. The Supreme Court did not give a reason for its rejection of Microsoft's appeal"

    Here's a good reason for you: as a US company, you should abide by US patent law, even if you sell overseas. Just because the business is done outside the US does not mean it's exempt from patent protections.

    Microsoft above all should be aware of this sort of thing--it's exactly like the tactics they were using with Lee going to work for Google. Washington (the state) would say "He can't go right to work there", and California would say "Come on in, here's your desk".

    • Re:No reason? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Keeper ( 56691 )
      What it means is that if you're a US based company, and technology is patented by one person in the US and other person overseas, you have to pay licensing fee's twice.

  • Eolas, dlopen(), and Sun Microsystems. (Score:3, Informative)

    by strredwolf ( 532 ) on Tuesday November 01, 2005 @07:47PM (#13928081) Homepage Journal
    I'm no lawyer, so I may be wrong.

    You probably know of one patent, the Eolas "browser plug in" patent, which threatens to kill every known web browser out there. And you probably know that Microsoft is fighting the patent, because it's being sued. And that everyone went about it the wrong way.

    So (given I have not even read the actual patent details) I thought "wait, there's this function in Unix called 'dlopen' that is commonly used in Netscape and Mozilla to load in plugins. It's even described that way. Where does it date back to?"

    A google search results in a Nov 16th, 1995 Sun Microsystems document describing a bug in SunOS 4.1.4's dlopen() call. [sun.com]

    The patent was awarded in 1998. dlopen() existed since late 1995, at least two, if not three, years before the patent.

    Whoops! I belive we got prior art from Sun! Quick, someone sue the Patent Office with this evidence!

    • You say the patent was awarded in 1998.

      But when was it filed? That's the date that matters when claiming prior art.

    • Actually, the NetBSD manpage says "Some of the dl* functions first appeared in SunOS 4", which, according to the Unix history chart [levenez.com], came out in 1989. The manpage doesn't specify which functions appeared, but it seems reasonable to assume that dlopen was among them.

      That'd be nine years before the patent was granted, then - so even if you assume it was filed a few years before being awarded, and even if you take into account the ~1 year that prior art actually has to come prior to the patent's filing to be c
    • Prior Art has to have occurred before the patent was filed(*) not before it was issued. It could have easily taken two years or more between the date of filing and the date of issue. Of course, I still think the patent is bogus, as the basic idea has been around for along time. I think it is ridiculous that people can take an existing idea and apply it to a new media and suddenly get a patent for it.

      On the other hand, I'm a little torn on this particular patent. The patent basically covers java and flas

  • Microsoft wants to lose this (Score:3, Interesting)

    by cpu_fusion ( 705735 ) on Tuesday November 01, 2005 @08:52PM (#13928608)
    This case is, in my opinion, a huge bit of theatrics. Microsoft wants to lose this case, and here is why:

    This patent, if enforced, would provide Microsoft a $500 million penalty for the ENFORCEMENT of plugins not being a possibility for browsers unless licensing is paid.

    What would this mean? Well, you could kiss your Flash, Java VM, etc. goodbye! Not only that, but Firefox would have to block plugins like that as well!

    Yes, as you can see, that would be a wet dream for Microsoft. The ability to dictate exactly what functionality is in IE, with the excuse of patents as an excuse.

    So if Microsoft totally botches this case and sets up legal precident for Eolas to have this patent, you'll know why. They WANT It there. It's all part of their IP war against Linux, Firefox, and all things good and holy. (tm).

    Microsoft: always playing the system. Never innovating. Might makes right!
     
  • The reason is that Miers isn't going to be bringing her personal insights [seattleweekly.com] to her hearing of the case, so they'd actually have to decide against Microsoft.
  • "Ha Ha!" [passagen.se] - Nelson Muntz

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