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June 4, 2007
Another Bite with a Fresh Rabbit
Giving large corporations
every opportunity to
treat the patent system as their own private reserve, the USPTO will give
Microsoft another chance to invalidate the Eolas web browser plug-in patent,
which Microsoft was found to have expensively infringed with its ActiveX technology. This
episode, provoking an interference, Microsoft pulls a rabbit out its hat that
claims that it, Big Genius, invented the technology, not the puny patentee.
Eolas asserted 5,838,906 against Microsoft in 1999. In August 2003, a district court pinned Microsoft with a $520.6 million tab for infringement. The appeals court remanded in March 2005, not cottoning to a damages award that included overseas sales: the court figuring that the law, 35 U.S.C. ยง 271(f) was not applicable to software, given its supposed ephemeral nature. In Hail Mary 1.0, Microsoft pushed reexamination, which failed: the patent was found valid.
If there is an equitable excuse for the patent office to bend over like this, I'd like to hear it.
Posted by Patent Hawk at June 4, 2007 1:19 PM | The Patent Office