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Everyone should look at this development in the EOLAS patent case.

As most everyone now knows, Eolas won a patent infringement claim against Microsoft recently. The prevailing result of this claim – if it is allowed to stand – threatens to torpedo basic internet technology, since it essentially claims sole ownership of the invention of “embedding”, which is a standard internet software procedure long established.

It is in fact remarkable that such an “idea” could ever have been allowed to be patented. Here is – again – a case of (alleged) research conducted at the university level at TAXPAYER cost, from which private individuals are now attempting to stuff their personal pockets at the expense of us all. Legal or not, it is an abomination.

Tim Berners-Lee, Director of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and widely regarded as the father of the World Wide Web, is now going after Eolas, claiming that their patent is invalid due to prior art.

In an October 28, 2003 letter to James E. Rogan, Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director, United States Patent and Trademark Office – see US Patent Office ‘906 Letter – Berners-Lee alleges that the Eolas patent should be revoked based on “new evidence uncovered by the W3C HTML Patent Advisory Group (PAG),” showing that the Eolas patent was in fact based on prior art which was freely availabe for more than a year prior to the Eolas filing.

See SitePoint for a nice article about these developments.

Let us all hope that Berners-Lee and the W3C prevail in this patent issue and that Eolas and the people who have a financial interest in this company get the ignominious fate which they all deserve. And if that occurs, as we should all wish and hope that it does, let us hope that this case sets an example for all future imitators, that this kind of thing will not be tolerated by the internet world.

The Eolas case thus far brings out some of the worst fears about the absolutely foolish and unnecessary legal application of many copyright and patent laws to the World Wide Web – fears voiced by Larry Lessig in his book Code. The copyright and patent laws were not intended for the internet – at least not in the same form as they were intended for mechanical inventions and books, and thus should not be applied to the internet in the same manner. Rather, Congress should make correspondingly divergent laws to keep the internet from being ruined by a few greedy copyright-claimants and patent-seekers. In fact, the copyright system as well as the entire patent filing system is drastically in need of legislative modernization.

As usual, a basic problem here is the US Congress, which has done next to nothing about these issues. As noted here,

“Many of these issues are so arcane that getting Congress’ attention to them is a challenge,” said [Todd] Dickinson, now a partner at law firm Howrey Simon Arnold & White in Washington.

The word “arcane” by the way means “known or understood by only few”. Is our Congress up to the job at hand?