An attorney friend recently explained that problems aren't patentable, only solutions are. That is, you can't patent the idea of a cure for cancer, and then claim the rewards when someone finally accomplishes that task. Clearly, that philosophy is outdated, as this patent has apparently thrived.

The inventor, Dr. Doyle, has a PhD and was employed at UCBerkeley, seems more legitimate than your average troll. Nevertheless, he didn't describe any technical implementation e.g. a scripting language, dynamic libraries, or even IO redirection of an external app. Obviously, he must have intentionally avoided patenting a specific invention in order to cast a wider net.

Ironically, none of the defendants actually sells a product that infringes. The objectionable products are all provided for free. AJAX and the rest are neither critical nor valuable. Damages? In Microsoft's case, I'd have to guess the $500M award was entirely putative. The only defendant that even indirectly benefits from the technology is Adobe.

All of the described functionality existed prior to 1994. The supposed "innovation" is describing the browser as a virtual platform. So '906 patents the browser. Mosaic was already available. The premise must be that, prior to this invention, the browser was limited to reading HTML documents.

There are so many defendants, I don't expect this case to be settled. In spite of the recent decisions, which only seem to have heightened Eolas's hubris, the legal merits of this case are much flimsier than most— even patents that seem painfully obvious. I expect this case to be a real watershed for software patent disputes.

I've assumed that the web space, where I work, is dominated by open source. Two days ago, I ran into a Windows consultant friend who I refer all my Windows consulting business. (We actually get very few requests for Windows consulting.) She complained that her business is really hurting, and I replied that we hadn't experienced any slowdown yet. Suddenly she attacked me along the very same lines... real Americans, patriotic Americans should use Microsoft instead of supporting socialism. My experience plus the posting below illustrates that Microsoft must still be pursuing the scoundral's last refuge. It makes sense that MS would try to take advantage of the polarized political climate in the US. But it isn't obvious that the take-no-prisionors strategy of the right can claim even a slim majority of the electorate. And I assume that a 40% market share consisting of rabid adherents, e.g. Macintosh's strategy, is not a long term direction for MS. While stewing over a hypothetical retort, I concluded that the OS model is similar to the way American Medicine works. Technology (in terms of medical advances) is freely shared, and the competitive edge is achieved in the implementation of health care technologies. Can you imagine the public outcry if a hospital chain made all of their medical procedures proprietary in an effort to monopolize the health care market? Presumably, then, every chest XRay also supports socialism. OS really represents an independent organization of programmers similar to the AMA, ABA, AIA, ASME, IEEE, and countless others. All of these organizations own standards, processes, and technologies collectively owned by their members and largely in the public domain. Granted, those organizations emerged in a less politically divided culture. But otherwise, OS is no closer to socialism than any of these other stalwart organizations. -Jim