Monday, August 11, 2003
Microsoft guilty of patent infringement in IE package
The giant gets busted:
The best part: Microsoft saying "The patent wasn't in force and besides even if it was we didn't do it anyway." Nothing like covering all your bases.
Categories: White collar crime. Corporate crime.
A federal jury awarded a software company and the University of California more than $520 million in damages Monday after finding that Microsoft Corp.'s popular Internet Explorer browser infringed on a patent...
Eolas [Technologies] was launched in 1994 to market technology that allows users to access interactive programs embedded in Web pages. Eolas chairman Michael Doyle along with two others developed the technology while at the University of California at San Francisco. Eolas owns the exclusive rights to market the technology, while the university owns the patent.
Eolas and the university say Microsoft made their technology part of Internet Explorer (search) and bundled it with Windows.
Microsoft attorneys argued that the patent was invalid and said that in any case their client had never infringed on it. Microsoft said the patent described features the technology didn't deliver.
Eolas says the patent Microsoft was found to have infringed upon is the first browser system that allowed for the embedding of small interactive programs such as "plug-ins" or "applets," into World Wide Web documents. Such programs are central today to online commerce as they power everything from banner ads to interactive customer service...
Microsoft faces more than 30 patent-infringement lawsuits, covering digital rights management, online video game software and other technologies.
The best part: Microsoft saying "The patent wasn't in force and besides even if it was we didn't do it anyway." Nothing like covering all your bases.
Categories: White collar crime. Corporate crime.
