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World Wide Web Consortium Presents the US Patent Office with Evidence Invalidating Eolas Patent

Posted by TimSlavin at October 30, 2003

In an unprecedented step, Tim Berners-Lee, W3C Director and inventor of the Web, sent a letter today to Under Secretary Rogan requesting that his office reinvestigate the matter. "W3C urges the USPTO to initiate a reexamination of the '906 patent in order to prevent substantial economic and technical damage to the operation of World Wide Web," stated Berners-Lee. "The impact of this patent will be felt not only by those who are alleged to directly infringe, but all whose web pages and application rely on the stable, standards-based operation of browsers threatened by this patent. In many cases, those who will be forced to incur the cost of modifying Web pages or software applications do not even themselves infringe the patent - assuming it is even valid." Excellent brief commentary and additional links from Dan Gillmor. The Eolas patent is a particularly good example of why software patents are bad.

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