Microsoft vs. Eolas

Presented by Dylan Caponion December 1, 2008

UC BerkeleyIEOR190G

The Technology

The Internet

Flowchart

Summary of Invention

"The present invention allows a user at a client computer connected to a network to locate, retrieve and manipulate objects in an interactive way.  The invention not only allows the user to use a hypermedia format to locate and retrieve program objects, but also allows the user to interact with an application program located at a remote computer.  Interprocess communication between the hypermedia browser and the embedded application program is ongoing after the program object has been launched.  The user is able to use a vast amount of computing power beyond that which is contained in the user's client computer."

Important Passages

"Client computer includes processes, such as browser client and application client.  In a preferred embodiment, application client is resident within client computer prior to browser client's parsing of a hypermedia document as discussed below.  In a preffered embodiment application client resides on the hard disk or RAM of client computer and is loaded (if necessary) and executed when browser client detects a link to application client.  The preferred embodiment uses the XEvent interprocess communication protocol to exchange information between browser client and application client.""In parsing hypermedia document browser client detects links to data objects as discussed in the Background of the Invention section."

Example

"Shows an example of an HTML tag format used by the present invention to embed a link to an application program within a hypermedia document." <EMBED    TYPE = "type"    HREF = "href"    WIDTH = width    HEIGHT = height>

The Claim

• All internet browsers that implement this method of embedded applications are infringing.

• Microsoft Internet Explorer... you are first!

The Defense - Prior Art

Pei-Yuan Wei created ViolaWWW at UC Berkeley in 1992• First browser to use embedded stylesheets, and tables• Fails "ping test", code was changed since original creation• Why engineers know more than lawyers

o "[Eolas Lawyers] were confident that Wei hadn't figured out how to make plug-ins work in 1993. They suspected Microsoft's lawyers might tinker with the technology before playing it for the jury in order to "conceal technical deficiencies," as Lueck puts it... So a few days before Wei was expected to testify, they asked their experts to "ping" the server belonging to Microsoft's expert. (Pinging is a way of diagnosing a remote computer by sending electronic signals, or pings.) Sure enough, they found that the server software had been changed since the 1993 demonstration."

The Decision

• August 11, 2003 - Jury found that Microsoft improperly put the ’906 patented Web browser technology into its Internet Explorer product [U.S. District Court in the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division]o Microsoft used technology to win critical market share

from rival Netscape Navigator. UC and Eolas awarded more than $520 million in damages.

o $1.47 per unit royalties for 354 million copies of Windows sold from the time the patent was granted in November 1998 until September 2001. The average price of Windows during the period was $61

• Microsoft must change Internet Explorer to not infringe

Microsoft's "Solution"

 

• February 2006 - Internet Explorer update to side-step infringement

Workarounds

• Javascript embeddingo Patent does not cover embedded scriptingo var obHTML = '<object ...>' +

  '<param name="URL" value="example.mpeg">'+  '<embed src="example.mpeg" ...>'+  '<\/object>';//the next line needs to be in an external filedocument.write(obHTML);

• Iframes• Using Mozilla Firefox

o No Eolas license

Conclusion

 • February 2005, Microsoft allowed a retrial• August 27, 2007 settlement reached

o Terms of settlement kept secreto Eolas stockholders promised $60 dividends

Privately held stock, settlement unknowno Microsoft announces the removal of "click to activate" in

Internet Explorer 7

References

1. http://www.howtocreate.co.uk/noclicktoactivate.html2. http://www.elys.com/eolas.php3. http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/2005/sep28.html4. http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=

viewArticleBasic&articleId=90462455. http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/329766_msfteolas31

.html6. "UC, Eolas win verdict against Microsoft in Web browser

case; Federal jury awards $520.6 million in damages," www.ucop.edu (11 August 2003).

7. http://www.ipwatchdog.com/patents/US_5838906.pdf