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Patent holder that won against Microsoft now targets Apple
By Neil Hughes
Apple and 22 other companies are the target of a new patent
infringement suit over the use of browser-embedded interactive Web
content.
Previous patent suits on behalf of Eolas have gone favorably for the
company. In 2004, it was granted $565 million in litigation against
Microsoft over one of the patents. In addition, the validity of the
patent in question was reaffirmed in three separate proceedings with
the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
The latest suit alleges that Apple and other companies are in violation
of U.S. Patent Nos. 5,838,906 and 7,599,985, which involve embedded Web
applications. It was filed Wednesday in a U.S. District Court in the
Eastern District of Texas.
The suit notes that Apple's official Web site includes interactive
content, and that applications like QuickTime and Safari, for both
Windows and Mac, enable the viewing of such content. It also alleges
that Apple's hardware that runs the previously mentioned software is in
violation of the patents.
"Intellectual property is the lifeblood of the U.S. economy," said Dr.
Michael D. Doyle, chairman of Eolas. "The primary reason for this has
been the success of the U.S. patent system in allowing the innovative
company in a field to develop and market its new inventions without
having competitors unfairly profit from the innovator's hard work. We
developed these technologies over 15 years ago and demonstrated them
widely, years before the marketplace had heard of interactive
applications embedded in Web pages tapping into powerful remote
resources. Profiting from someone else's innovation without payment is
fundamentally unfair. All we want is what's fair."
The company said its patents relate to fully-interactive browser
embedded applications. The patent ending in 906 was granted in 1998,
and the subsequent patent was issued this month. It covers embedded
applications through the use of browser plug-ins and AJAX.
The long list of defendants, in its entirety, includes: Adobe, Amazon,
Apple, Argosy Publishing, Blockbuster, CDW Corporation, Citigroup,
Ebay, Frito-Lay, GoDaddy, Google, J.C. Penney, JP Morgan Chase &
Co., New Frontier Media, Office Depot, Perot Systems Corp., Playboy,
Rent-A-Center, Staples, Sun Microsystems, Texas Instruments, Yahoo and
YouTube.
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