Man Claiming He Invented the Internet Sues 326
wiedzmin writes "A low-profile Chicago biologist, Michael Doyle, and his company Eola Technologies, who has once won a $521m patent lawsuit against Microsoft, claim that it was actually he and two co-inventors who invented, and patented, the "interactive web" before anyone else, back in 1993. Doyle argues that a program he created to allow doctors to view embryos over the early Internet, was the first program that allowed users to interact with images inside of a web browser window. He is therefore seeking royalties for the use of just about every modern interactive Internet technology, like watching videos or suggesting instant search results. Dozens of lawyers, representing the world's biggest internet companies, including Yahoo, Amazon, Google and YouTube are acting as defendants in the case, which has even seen Tim Berners-Lee testify on Tuesday."
there has to be some statute of limitations... (Score:5, Informative)
I mean... if you file your claim decades after everyone was violating your patient isn't that your fault at a certain point?
I know big companies are basically forced to defend their trademark and copyrights or else risk that other people can do it with impunity. There's some requirement that you protest when this sort of thing happens.
So... shouldn't he have protested like... forever ago?
For the sake of argument, if his claims are all valid, they should be void now because he didn't act on them until now.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Al Gore (Score:1, Informative)
Again, more reasons for IP reform, IP needs to be redefined, and a good number of vauge and overly generalized patents need to be thrown out.
the review proccess for granting patents needs and overhaul, as well as restrictions and background checks on who can be a patent clerk and stingent enforcement.
Then we might see the end of frivolous tech law suits which only harm actually developers and artists.
Re:there has to be some statute of limitations... (Score:2, Informative)
That's only true with trademarks. Copyrights and patents have no such rule.
Re:there has to be some statute of limitations... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Patent Lifespan? (Score:5, Informative)
It doesn't matter to the courts if the patent expires during the course of the case. The damages, if legitimate, were done during the period the patent was active. He just won't accrue any additional damage once the patent expires.
Re:LIAR (Score:2, Informative)
"During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet."
That is a direct quote from Al Gore in an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer on March 9, 1999. Now, his wording was off, and he later corrected himself by saying that he meant he helped promote the internet, and he pushed bills that moved the internet forward--he did not mean to claim actual credit for it's invention. However, the joke is still funny, and he DID claim it (albeit through poor wording).
Prior Usage. (Score:5, Informative)
There was also a Graphical BBS Engine called Roboboard and its upgrade Roboboard/FX
There were systems like Prodigy, and AOL which had images...
Re:LIAR (Score:5, Informative)
Re:LIAR (Score:5, Informative)
That is a direct quote from Al Gore
Taken out-of-context and by your own admission, not what he meant to say. That's why it tiring and not funny any more.
Re:there has to be some statute of limitations... (Score:4, Informative)
While the Microsoft suit was underway, the company applied for a second patent, which it received on Oct. 6, 2009. The same day, Eolas filed suit — in East Texas — against more than 20 big companies
No limitations here.
Re:Really? (Score:5, Informative)
Well, looking at his patent claims, it's a lot more like he's patented the use of something like Applescript to let a browser control an external application. In fact in 1994 this was quite common in the Apple world, Applescript being introduced in 1991. In fact I think quite a few people were viewing medical imagery and multimedia (remember when that was a buzzword?) stored in "databases" like FileMaker and (ugh) 4th Dimension. It was commonplace stuff in the Apple environment while the Microsoft-centric world was still banging the Windows 3 rocks together (remember Windows for Workgroups?).
The web, however, was not commonplace in 1994, so he may well have been the first to file for the use of this technique with a browser. However the technique was so commonplace it would be hard to imagine that it was *original*, especially if he used a browser with the necessary IPC mechanisms built-in. Why else *would* they developers have made an Applescript-aware brower *but* to interact with other programs? If they wrote the browser themselves, then they might have a claim that an IPC-aware browser was a novel thing.
In any case, unless I'm mistaken the patent doesn't describe built-in multi-media capabilities, or multi-media capabilities through plug-ins. It covers controlling an external program with a browser.
I wish this guy success though. As you suggest, this will gore enough oxen that somebody with money will care that the system is broken.
Re:Missing a letter (Score:3, Informative)
Novelty still present under first to file (Score:4, Informative)
Unfortunately "first to file" means your honest, hard-won invention that benefits all mammalkind will be stolen by an eeval corpra$hun.
Only if an employee of said evil corporation invented a product or process equivalent to "your honest, hard-won invention" but filed a patent before you published it. You see, first to file doesn't scrap the requirement of novelty; it affects only patent vs. patent disputes. Defensive publication of how to build your invention remains a viable way to get your prior art on the record and preclude any patents. So "git" your source code out there.
Re:Really? (Score:5, Informative)
I lived through this. Apple got rejected from the enterprise market because (a) they had no interest in competing with cheap commodity hardware and (b) they acted as though they were doing their IT department advocates more than enough favors by letting them buy Apple stuff in the first place. They had an unnerving habit of pulling the rug out from under you too. God help you if you invested Apple's A/UX Unix (which was technically superb).
Apple's "corporate DNA" has always destined it for the consumer market.
As for their networking support, it was superb for the time. The only drawback was the implementation of LocalTalk over RS 422; it was a bus topology like thinnet but slower and without positive locking connectors. You can't compare Apple's built-in networking to Windows 3, because Windows 3 didn't have any. If you compare it to Novell, Novell had better file serving, directory services and scalability. Apple had better practically everything else, including UI (of course), P2P and service discovery.
As for VB, it was a primitive era in 1994 when the patent was filed. VB 3, the first version with the Jet engine, had only come out the year before and VB code monkeys were excited about the datagrid control. In any case you have no idea what I'm talking about. Applescript is an object oriented inter-application communication system. It makes no sense to compare it to VB (you want to look at HyperCard for that); it makes more sense to compare it to something like CORBA or SOAP, only it provided a standard scripting language in addition to a networkable common object model (AppleEvents). On the whole it was very similar to Javascript and DOM, only able to control things other than web browsers.
Don't get me wrong. I'm *not* a fan of Apple the company. I swore I'd never develop for another Apple platform again (although iOS is tempting) because of Apple indifference to developers and enterprise managers. But Apple sure has made some products that were ahead of their time.