To sum up: a guy who paid the University of California for exclusive rights to one of their patents a few years ago has SUCCESSFULLY sued Microsoft for $521 million, claiming that the patent covers ALL instances of ActiveX.
But the patent is even more insidious and far-reaching than that. Here's the text: "Distributed hypermedia method for automatically invoking external application providing interaction and display of embedded objects within a hypermedia document."
This effectively patents ALL embedded objects on HTML pages, ranging from .MP3 players to RealAudio to QuickTime to Macromedia Flash.
I have absolutely no idea how Microsoft was unable to find prior art to defeat this claim, because it's simply not POSSIBLE for the University of California to have patented components of the HTML spec itself (which is supposed to be open-source). If this ruling means that the embed and script tags of HTML are in fact LICENSED, we're in for some really bizarre lawsuits.
Copyright I'm fine with, because it applies to very specific ideas (intent and independence matter, for instance). Patents were designed to apply to physical implementations of ideas (that is, inventions), and this has only recently been breached in two ways: patents for business processes, and patents for software (not even specific implementations!). Both are travesties, because they allow people to make broad reaching patents on obvious ideas instead of particular patents on specific ways of doing things (that is, physical inventions). And the protections provided to patent holders are expansive and dominating, as demonstrated by this suit.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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Tom doesn't HTML originate with Apple? I thought that way way back the idea and original standards for HTML were developed for Lisa and were ported to The Mac mrk1. I also thought that Apple placed the concepts of HTML into the public domain very early on. Say 1987-88?
This would literally make software vendors suddenly have to develop stand alone browswers. And make a person who attempts to publish any web material unable to include any components without paying a lisence fee or royalty. This is just simply amazing. I thought that since HTML standards were PD and that a non-competitive group defines the standards that any enforcement such as this would never be allowed.
Imagine the effects. Web sites from the USA or based in the USA would simply be pages of public domain fonts. Might make for real fast page loads, but no adaptive interaction technologies would be enabled. Then again neither would customized pop up ads. Seems bad to me.
Posts: 110 | Registered: Jan 2001
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