Is ActiveX Update affect FireFox & Opera?

[Guest]

Does ActiveX Update (KB 917425) affect other web browsers like FireFox & Opera?

 

[C A Upsdell]

Does ActiveX Update (KB 917425) affect other web browsers like FireFox & Opera?

Firefox and Opera do not yet have an update similar to the recent Eolas
update for IE. But they might at some point in the future, since Eolas
could sue them too, if it chooses to do so. Ditto for Apple and Safari,
and AOL/Netscape, and every other browser maker that makes browsers that
conform to the standards.

 

[Vanguard]

Firefox and Opera do not yet have an update similar to the recent
Eolas update for IE. But they might at some point in the future,
since Eolas could sue them too, if it chooses to do so. Ditto for
Apple and Safari, and AOL/Netscape, and every other browser maker that
makes browsers that conform to the standards.

I was wondering how a judgment (for Eolas) back in 1993 which had
Microsoft saying it would make small changes by early 2004 would be
relevant to patches released a week ago. Then I read
http://technology.guardian.co.uk/weekly/story/0,,1756682,00.html. Geez,
Microsoft is slow but maybe they have been waiting for the USPTO to get
off their lazy asses over the last 3 years to finish their certificate
reexamination.

So how is Eolas going to sue anyone over its patent that may be
nullified by the US Patent Office (i.e., it is under review to determine
if still valid)?

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/03/05/eolas_web_patent_nullified/
http://www.w3.org/2003/10/28-906-briefing
http://www.windowsitpro.com/Articles/Index.cfm?ArticleID=41941&DisplayTab=Article

The reexam of the patent appears to still be ongoing
(http://portal.uspto.gov/external/po...rytab&isSubmitted=isSubmitted&dosnum=90006831).
So any suits filed by Eolas would also be pending until the status of
this patent is declared by the USPTO. The patent hasn't been nullified
yet. It is just under reexamination (i.e., review) to determine if it
should be nullified. So, if it gets nullified, and if Microsoft has
actually paid anything to Eolas (or his university that owns the patent
but licenses it to Eolas), what happens when Eolas can't pay the money
back because it already spent it on its other "research"?

Most reexams result in the patent surviving. But Eolas patent
definition is so vague that it defines behavior rather than specific
mechanisms. Not easy to read but it seems to cover any mechanism for
utilizing a client-side agent, like a plug-in, that can be controlled by
content within the HTML page proffered by the server. That would cover
Java applets, Java app caching, Javascript, ActiveX, etc., along with
any future client-side, server-controlled technology. The patent was
filed in 1994 and yet it wasn't until 1999 and long after these
technologies had been well established that Eolas decided to sue. In
effect, they kept waiting until a threshold of infringement occurred
after which it was profitable to sue.

I have to wonder if a patent can survive where the author does not
enforce their rights to it when they know the infringement is current
rather than wait until someday later to sue in the future when there is
profit to make at that time rather than incur a loss fighting to enforce
your patent when infringement is first noticed. Also, Eolas filed broad
patent. So how broad can a patent be and still actually point to any
specific instance as an infringement? Eolas' patent is so broad that I
couldn't tell from it just exactly how anything vaguely described was to
be actually implemented. Gee, I'll take a patent on human inhalation.
You can all exhale but you'll need to pay me to inhale.

I thought one of the applauded "features" of Firefox was that it does
NOT support ActiveX (which seems to be the major crux of the lawsuit
although other technologies would also be covered by the ridiculously
broad patent). See
http://www.mozilla.org/support/firefox/faq.html#mozvsie. If there is a
plug-in to support ActiveX within Firefox, it would probably be the
plug-in author that would get sued and not Mozilla.

 

[C A Upsdell]

I was wondering how a judgment (for Eolas) back in 1993 which had
Microsoft saying it would make small changes by early 2004 would be
relevant to patches released a week ago. Then I read
http://technology.guardian.co.uk/weekly/story/0,,1756682,00.html. Geez,
Microsoft is slow but maybe they have been waiting for the USPTO to get
off their lazy asses over the last 3 years to finish their certificate
reexamination.

So how is Eolas going to sue anyone over its patent that may be
nullified by the US Patent Office (i.e., it is under review to determine
if still valid)?

The problem is that the patent office appears not to be invalidating the
patent in question.

For a WHOLE lot about this, see:

http://www.upsdell.com/BrowserNews/res_eolas.htm

 

[Viktor Krammer]

Hello DY,

Does ActiveX Update (KB 917425) affect other web browsers like FireFox &

Opera?

Good question!

According to eweeks, the founder of Eolas Interactive and the "inventor" of
the patent, Michael Doyle, wants to make an exception for open source
software, although Mozilla is clearly commercial and making money with its
product Firefox, whereas I doubt that Microsoft has direct revenues from IE.

http://www.emailbattles.com/archive/battles/ip_aadahdadhj_jf/

Viktor
http://www.quero.at/

 

[Vanguard]

The problem is that the patent office appears not to be invalidating
the patent in question.

For a WHOLE lot about this, see:

http://www.upsdell.com/BrowserNews/res_eolas.htm

I provided the USPTO link to the document history regarding the reexam
of the patent but unfortunately it does not itself have links so anyone
can actually read those documents. A reexam does not kill or even
suspend a patent. Not until the USPTO nullifies the patent would Eolas
loss any cases based on it but I can't see any court wasting time on a
patent infringement case where the patent was being reexamined because
of the later turnover if it got nullified.