See: http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/09/03/HNmicrosoftsloss_1.html
With respect to the mess of software patents, here is an example where initially most people laughed, "Ha ha, they f----ed Microsoft!", until it slowly began to dawn on people that this is a huge problem. For example, consider the <OBJECT> and <SCRIPT> tags in the HTML standard: the W3C is concerned about the implications of Eolas' patent claim, according to Janet Daly, the organization's head of communications. "There certainly are concerns whenever patent issues ... appear to be relevant to basic technology. That gets the attention of the W3C membership," she said. Past patent claims, such as those affecting the P3P (Platform for Privacy Preferences ) standard, have stopped development or the implementation of development standards, she said. Here is the FFII page on the suit: http://swpat.ffii.org/patents/effects/eolas/index.en.html. According to the FFII analysis, the Eolas patent would also cover ECMAScript, client-side XSL processing, and any other form of client-side processing based upon downloaded instructions. KDE says that they will have to remove their plug-in facility if this patent remains. "If this would be demanded from KDE, the only course of action that we can take is to remove the patented functionality from KHTML," the [KDE] developers continued. "That would make a sad example of how software patents are harming innovation, competition and standards compliance in the Internet age." Opera and Mozilla will also be effected. The idea of an Open Source browser is rendered meaningless. Eolas is looking for billions of US$ in compensation (half a billion in penalties, millions more in back royalties, and billions in forward royalties from everyone who they believe infringes on this technology, which they claim to have invented 11 years ago). "This is a fundamental problem," said Larry Rosen (http://www.rosenlaw.com/). "I think that the open-source community has to deal with patents head-on. The patent system is kind of broken for software. In many ways it's too easy to get a patent, and too expensive to fight it." Eolas has another patent filing that may cover SSL. Anyone still laughing? --- Noel --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
