Apple and 22 other companies are now the target of a new patent infringement suit over the use of browser-embedded interactive Web content. Previous patent suits on behalf of Eolas have gone favorably for the company. In 2004, Eolas was granted $565 million from litigation against Microsoft over a patent. The latest suit alleges that Apple and other companies are in violation of patents 5,838,906 and 7,599, 985. Both involve embedded Web applications. The suit was filed Wednesday in a U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Texas.The suit states that Apple's official website uses QuickTime and Safari to enable the viewing of interactive content. It also alleges that Apple's hardware that runs the previously stated software is in violation of the patents as well. "Intellectual property is the lifeblood of the U.S. economy," said Dr. Michael D. Doyle, chairman of Eolas. "The primary reason for this has been the success of the U.S. patent system in allowing the innovative company in a field to develop and market its new inventions without having competitors unfairly profit from the innovator's hard work.”
The company stated that its patents relate to interactive, browser-embedded applications. The patent that ends in 906 was granted in 1998 and the other was issued this month. It covers the use of embedded applications through the use of browser plug-ins and AJAX.
The list of defendants, in its entirety, is as follows: Adobe, Amazon, Apple, Argosy Publishing, Blockbuster, CDW Corporation, Citigroup, Ebay, Frito-Lay, GoDaddy, Google, J.C. Penney, JP Morgan Chase & Co., New Frontier Media, Office Depot, Perot Systems Corp., Playboy, Rent-A-Center, Staples, Sun Microsystems, Texas Instruments, Yahoo and YouTube.
benet
November 10, 2009 at 8:40pm
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gdl
October 08, 2009 at 2:12pm
I guess this company sues a bunch of companies, keep their money until they need more. They could be investing more on lawyers than programmers. Another thing, I have never heard about Eolas before.
Mman633
October 08, 2009 at 12:18pm
He is NOT going to win because he has named Youtube as a defendant and all Youtube does is show videos in the browser. In my opinion this company is already fighting a losing battle. I find it in infuriating to hear this kind of thing. I hope this company gets discredited.
SpaceTrucker
October 08, 2009 at 2:28am
Unfortunately for him, he will lose by having his patents ruled invalid since Mozilla/BSD has been doing this since way before 1998 and it's new one will become invalid as well since Mozilla has been doing all this since before then as well. Unless this guy owns BSD/Mozilla, I don't see how he can sue anyone or obtain these patents... Last I checked Eolas was not the owner of BSD/Mozilla, it was it's own entity formed of open source programmers. I can see suing Microsoft for this as their Browser is stolen technology that they have turned into a proprietary browser, Apple on the other hand doesn't, it uses open source technology, which was first developed by BSD and Mozilla.
