Web patents: Eolas claims are "not intended to cripple the internet"

First they wrestled down Microsoft, now they're litigating against other big IT players: Eolas intends to enforce its patent on web technologies and plug-ins for integrating interactive content at all cost. However, a partner of the legal firm representing Eolas assured the readers of German Focus magazine that the vendor does not intend to cripple the internet. The lawyer also said that individuals, such as Facebook users or bloggers, using the technologies for integrating, for example, videos into their web pages or profiles, have nothing to fear. Litigation against such individuals doesn't make sense economically, he added.

There is, indeed, a lot of commercial interest behind the vendor's litigation activities: After all, Microsoft was ordered to pay damages amounting to $521 million for infringing on an Eolas patent by using ActiveX in the Internet Explorer web browser. The two parties eventually reached an out-of-court settlement (the agreement's financial details remain undisclosed); in addition, Microsoft obtained a licence for the patented technology from Eolas.

The claims filed by legal firm McKool Smith revolve around US patent number 5,838,906 (Distributed hypermedia method for automatically invoking external application providing interaction and display of embedded objects within a hypermedia document). This patent was also used as a legal basis in the case against Microsoft. Furthermore, Eolas is basing its claims on US patent number 7,599,985 (Distributed hypermedia method and system for automatically invoking external application providing interaction and display of embedded objects within a hypermedia document), which was granted on the 6th of October 2009.

See also:

• Eolas Technologies Files Infringement Lawsuit , Eolas press release.

(crve)