Eolas is a company founded by Dr Michael David Doyle of the
University of California San Francisco (UCSF) which came up with a
method of allowing browsers to use other small pieces of software.
Eolas says that Microsoft turned down the opportunity to licence
its technology and when similar technology turned up in Microsoft's
browser, Eolas sued.
Microsoft did violate an Eolas patent with its market leading
internet browser Internet Explorer, according to an August 2003
judgment in an Illinois court. The court awarded $521m in damages
to Eolas.
The patent involved is number 5,838,906, 'Distributed hypermedia
method for automatically invoking external application providing
interaction and display of embedded objects within a hypermedia
document,' filed 1994 and granted in November 1998.
The patent relates to Doyle's claim to have invented the first
browser that integrated plug-ins, small pieces of software which
enhance the browser's capabilities. Demonstrations were said to
have been taking place since 1993.
Microsoft was offered a licence for the technology in 1994 and
declined, leading to the 1999 suit over capabilities in Internet
Explorer. Microsoft appealed the judgment but The Supreme Court in
the US refused to hear the appeal, meaning that the Federal Circuit
Court of Appeals judgment still held, though only in relation to
foreign sales of Microsoft's Explorer-containing operating system,
Windows. The original District Court judgment had ruled that any
payments should take account of foreign sales of Explorer.
Microsoft was previously denied the chance to have a new judge
hear its case, but the CAFC has now overturned that ruling. The
court said that Microsoft was only following what it viewed as
correct procedure, and was not seeking to address a perceived
bias.
"Microsoft did not assert any bias or misconduct on the part of
the original judge," said the ruling, "but instead urged that
reassignment should occur automatically [in such a case]".
