Eolas Patents (Score 2, Interesting)

These patents are egregious. I worked for a decade at Data Resources, Inc., a leading timesharing firm. We had the concept of executable code inside documents more than twenty years ago. EPS largely created by Bob Lacey was years ahead of its time. In 1983 with Visicorp we shipped VisiLink and DataKits for the Apple II. VisiLink installed on the Apple II. The user filled out a form downloaded from the Burroughs mainframe. Connectivity was via a dial-up modem. Billing was by credit card. Requests were fulfilled by running a program unique to each form on the mainframe using as arguments the entries in the form. What was delivered to the Apple II was a VisiCalc spreadsheet to be executed on the Apple II in VisiCalc. I still have a retail package. Almost everything Eolas claims is covered by EPS and VisiLink/DataKits. Maybe everything. I tried to help Microsoft in their suit, going so far as to send some documentation to their attorneys who I reached by calling Steve Ballmer. The attorneys decided to take a different path in fighting the patents and never used it.