Patents of Software Destruction Tuesday 2006-04-11
blood was rushing to my head, as I came about an article in ZDNet news entitled “Eolas work-around puts the brakes on Rich Internet Applications“.
Provocative title, no doubt, but what’s it about?
Eolas Technologies Inc. and the University of California has raised a lawsuit against Microsoft over a patent on interactive software embedded in net documents. Says ZDNets Ed Burnette:
“Eolas basically patented the idea of embedding interactive content (like a Flash control or a Java applet) in a web page and won’t let anyone else use this idea without paying them millions of dollars.”To no surprise, Microsoft is not willing to pay, but reacts by crafting a work-around for embedding Active-X controls. In effect they regard them non-interactive until the user “activates” the applet by clicking on it. For the user, this means the applet must be clicked on to focus it before it is usable. An inconvenience, and in my opinion completely unnecessary. There should be a world wide ban on software patents. They only work to hinder development and use of good software and user experience.
In this case a federal judge has ruled that Microsoft pay Eolas and the University of California $520 in damage for the alleged patent violation. I usually think that Microsoft, while doing a lot for the computer and Internet users, are also doing too much to lock them into an all Microsoft environment. In this case though, I think their place on the barricades is beneficial to all, users and programmers alike.
Look at this excerpt from US Patent 5,838,906 filed October 1994, and let me know what you think!
“What is claimed is:
providing at least one client workstation and one network server coupled to said network environment, wherein said network environment is a distributed hypermedia environment;
executing, at said client workstation, a browser application, that parses a first distributed hypermedia document to identify text formats included in said distributed hypermedia document and for responding to predetermined text formats to initiate processing specified by said text formats; utilizing said browser to display, on said client workstation, at least a portion of a first hypermedia document received over said network from said server, wherein the portion of said first hypermedia document is displayed within a first browser-controlled window on said client workstation, wherein said first distributed hypermedia document includes an embed text format, located at a first location in said first distributed hypermedia document, that specifies the location of at least a portion of an object external to the first distributed hypermedia document, wherein said object has type information associated with it utilized by said browser to identify and locate an executable application external to the first distributed hypermedia document, and wherein said embed text format is parsed by said browser to automatically invoke said executable application to execute on said client workstation in order to display said object and enable interactive processing of said object within a display area created at said first location within the portion of said first distributed hypermedia document being displayed in said first browser-controlled window.”
And it goes on like this of course in ten paragraphs. Yes I know, legal gibberish looks like this, and for a reason. The patent is not so much for a technical solution, as for the mere idea of embedding software in a web page and have it execute (at least partly) on the client computer.
When it comes to real usable software, copyright laws are absolutely sufficient, and patents only serves to make development difficult and users suffer.
Please tell me otherwise, if you like!
- Posted in : Tech Stuff, The Internet
- Author : Petit
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