Java infringes upon a patent?

Deepak Saxena was the first to write in with this week's Cringley Pulpit. A little startup company called Eolas has received patent 5,838,906 on November 17th... a patent that covers use of embedded program objects (applets) within Web documents, the use of any algorithm that implements dynamic, bi-directional communications between Web browsers and external applications, and even the whole concept of executable content, which is at the very foundation of Java and ActiveX. Cringely argues that since companies must provide their share-holders with maximal value, and Microsoft has the deepest pockets of any company, Microsoft could offer to pay a high price for an exclusive license from Eolas, and let Eolas earn big bucks by suing everyone else for abuse of their patent. Clearly a coalition of players could bid against Microsoft, but perhaps a call for prior art (pre-1993) is needed: when, for instance, was Corba invented? Thanks to Acheron, here is the patent's URL on IBM's patent server.