Eolas
| Eolas Technologies Inc. | |
|---|---|
| legal form | Inc. |
| founding | 1994 |
| Seat | Tyler , Texas , USA |
| management | Michael David Doyle |
| Branch | software |
| Website | www.eolas.com |
Eolas is an American company that achieved fame primarily through disputes over software patents and is sometimes compared to patent trolls .
history
Eolas was founded in 1994 by Michael David Doyle . The name stands for “Embedded Objects Linked Across Systems” and also for the Gaelic word for “knowledge”. Doyle's team at the University of California, San Francisco programmed the first Web browser , the plug-ins supported. They first demonstrated this function in November 1993. This claim is challenged by Pei-Yuan Wei , developer of the ViolaWWW browser . In doing so, he is backed by Tim Berners-Lee and others who have played a key role in the development of the World Wide Web .
The dispute was mainly about the validity, but also about the use of the patent in Internet Explorer . In March 2004 the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) revoked Eolas' patent for the time being, but declared it valid at the end of September 2005 after re-examination. Thus, the judgment passed in August 2003 that Microsoft had to pay 521 million US dollars - the sum has meanwhile been increased to 565 million US dollars - became legally binding again. Since Microsoft's argument that the relevant technologies were already known before the patent was applied for (" Prior Art ") did not work, a solution that had already been found in October 2003 was taken up: Change Internet Explorer and the technologies it contains in order to access license payments to Eolas circumvent what ultimately succeeded and was acknowledged as a "shame" by Eolas.
However, the implementation did not follow the announced restrictive manner. The optional IE update planned for April 11, 2006, which was supposed to give web developers the opportunity to react adequately to possible incompatibilities and, on the other hand, to get the end user to "rebuild" their browser, was not implemented within 60 days for a critical security update.
In August 2007, a settlement between Eolas and Microsoft on undisclosed terms became known.
Eolas holds patents on processes in which moving image elements in videos can be linked with hyperlinks .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ A b Frank Patalong: Software company Eolas: Microsoft conqueror attacks the web economy , Spiegel Online, October 7, 2009
- ↑ Jens Ihlenfeld: Eolas patent continues to threaten the WWW . Golem.de, September 30, 2005, accessed on July 16, 2010.
- ↑ Ingo Pakalski: Eolas: ActiveX change in Internet Explorer is embarrassing . Golem.de, April 3, 2006, accessed on July 16, 2010.
- ↑ Todd Bishop: High-profile, 8-year patent dispute settled , Seattle PI, August 30, 2007. (English)