According to this CNet News.com article, Microsoft is advising Web authors on how to use plug-ins in a non-infringing way following their recent loss in a recent patent suit.
Update: Jeff Wilkinson pointed me to an interesting Cringley article from 2002 which discussed possible outcomes of the trial, and also to Zeldman’s take on this whole mess.
Zeldman has more in this topic today too:
http://www.zeldman.com/daily/0903b.shtml#patentnonsense
It is odd to find myself strongly on the side of microsoft in an legal issue… It’s a shame that no-one has found a way to invalidate this patent claim yet. One more patent-mill company screwing up the world for the rest of us in return for a few (million) bucks.
Wonder why MS isn’t licensing the patent from Eolas ? Perhaps they think that negociating for that would imply that the patent was valid and they aren’t willing to do that yet… maybe they are hoping that public pressure over breaking plugins on thousand (millions?) of sites will make Eolas back down…
Wonder if anyone has thought of suing Eolas over the fact that they are screwing up their websites, and costing everyone money to convert away from plugins…?
Interesting Cringley article from 2002 on this:
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20021107.html