Just when you thought things were going well for Apple, along comes another patent lawsuit. Remember Eolas Technologies? About five years ago they sued Microsoft and won a $565-million award. Now they’re suing Apple, Adobe, Amazon, Google, Yahoo!, Office Depot and many, many others. Basically any company that uses web technology and has a bank account. Why? Eolas was awarded a patent on web-based interactive embedded applications. In other words, anything interactive in a web page.
Dr. Michael D. Doyle, Eolas chairman:
Intellectual property is the lifeblood of the U.S. economy. 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,” says Dr. Doyle. “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.
Is Eolas a technology company? No. They’re a company made up most of thinkers and lawyers—they dream up and patent ideas. What’s next? A patent on hair styles? I claim prior art. Apple’s HyperCard preceded Eoala’s patent and the world wide web by nearly a decade. What’s the difference?
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