- From: Benjamin Franz <snowhare@nihongo.org>
- Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2003 12:46:43 -0700 (PDT)
- To: public-web-plugins@w3.org
On Wed, 10 Sep 2003, Jeffrey Altman wrote:
> Greg has an interesting take on the patent which may provide Microsoft a
> huge loophole to avoid future claims.
> - A WORKAROUND OF THE EOLAS PATENT FOR MICROSOFT?
[...]
>
> "wherein said object has type information associated with it utilized
> by said browser to identify and locate an executable application"
>
> According to the claim-construction of the court the limitation
>"utilized by said browser" means that the browser is what does the
>function of identifying and locating the external application. All
>Microsoft needs to do is to remove this function from the browser and
>rather recreate it as a function in the Windows OS. For example when the
>browser reads the "type information" for Shockwave application it refers
>the type information to a component in the OS, which further performs the
>function of identifying and locating the application. It's as simple as
>that IMO. This would be transparent to the end-user.
>
> So nothing to worry about losing embedded apps from browsers..
Microsoft has claimed for years now that the browser is _AN INTEGRAL PART_
of the OS. In fact, they have made that a center piece of some of their
legal battles to date. They would probably get murdered in court if they
tried to claim at this late date that the browser _wasn't_ part of the OS
for the purpose of this patent. If they made a legal filing to that end,
they would open themselves to a claim a perjury (because they would have
legally under oath on the record claimed two positions that are clearly
mutually incompatible) and/or to losing some of the other civil litigation
in process against them.
--
Benjamin Franz
Gauss's law is always true, but it is not always useful.
-- David J. Griffiths, "Introduction to Electrodynamics"
Received on Wednesday, 10 September 2003 15:46:51 UTC