W3C Eolas Prior Art Dropped?

--> From http://www.eweek.com/print_article/0,1761,a=133765,00.asp

According to patent office spokeswoman Brigid Quinn, 
Eolas on Monday was mailed an "office action" on the 
re-examination of the disputed patent. A number of 
online reports said the patent office examiner decided 
to reject the 10 claims presented by Eolas.

But Eolas attorney Martin Lueck, of Minneapolis-based 
Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi LLP, said the examiner 
had accepted a number of Eolas' arguments and had 
withdrawn his previous finding from February. 

Lueck said the patent office examiner had issued 
a new action based on yet another piece of 
"prior art" to reject the patent's claims. The prior-art
piece was outside the examples offered by the W3C 
(World Wide Web Consortium), which brought the prior-art
question to the attention of the patent office in November 
2003. 

Prior art is a legal term referring to whether an 
invention existed prior to the filing of a patent. 
But this "piece of art" was not addressed in the 
February action, he said, hence the reversal. 

"We're back to square one," Lueck said.

Received on Friday, 20 August 2004 19:37:52 UTC