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."
Really? (Score:5, Interesting)
It's come to this now? How bad does it have to get before the entire system is scrapped?
Interested to see what the companies do... (Score:5, Interesting)
Many of the companies named has defendants have used patent laws to their advantage. It will be interesting to see how this shakes out, especially since Tim Berners-Lee, who is completely against software patents, is set to testify.
Re:LIAR (Score:5, Interesting)
You have to be really braindead. (Score:5, Interesting)
So you not only sued Microsoft, you actually won 500 million. Regardless of whether this was a dick move on your part or not, good for you, you are now set for life (or 3).
Now why on Earth would you risk it all by going into litigation again?
Patent Lifespan? (Score:4, Interesting)
On a practical note, since this was an 'invention' in 1993, wouldn't the patent expire next year anyway (20 year patent life?) In that case, won't somebody like IBM just tie this up in the courts and give the lawyers something to chew on until it runs out anyway?
Re:LIAR (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:there has to be some statute of limitations... (Score:4, Interesting)
So, it seems there's a chance that waiting too long can invalidate your claims.
Compare with trademark law where you have to defend it whenever it may be seen to be infringed (see the case where Hoover corp lost the right to have the exclusive rights to the term "hoover"); the same doctrine should apply for patents. Of course, the whole patent system is a mess these days as it was designed in a different age with different industries. Scrapping patents isn't the solution as they provide valuable protection to inventors who put effort into designing something, but they're horribly abused by various parties.
Kinda late ? (Score:4, Interesting)
Even if combining file transfer [ftp] and image scrolling is patent-legally considered "novel", there is the question of damages. 1993 patents ran out (in the US) in 2010, so he cannot get any ongoing damages.
Optaining "back-damages" would be highly dependant on legal procedure, but I doubt he would be entitled to [m]any if he did not inform the alleged infringers during the period of their alleged infringement. It's not like browser coders were hard to see, find or email. Just another troll.
Re:there has to be some statute of limitations... (Score:5, Interesting)
If you'd read the article, you'd see that there has been some back-and-forth with the patent office. Most of his claims were invalidated and some were then later reinstated. He had semi-successfully sued Microsoft, had the judgement overturned, and then later reached a settlement (undisclosed, but estimated to be in the realm of $100 million). Worth noting is that Microsoft was not allowed to present evidence of prior art at trial. Why that would be, I have no idea - I'm not a patent lawyer. In any event, in terms of this guy not acting on his claims, that's just an indictment of how slow the legal and patent processes move.
Certainly, there's no question that by the time his patent application was publicly published, much less granted, everything in there was in common use. Frankly, if you strip out all of the buzzwords like hypermedia, it boils down to something as simple as downloading and running a script. That's it. And there's plenty of prior art that existed in 1994 for all of the claims listed in the application.
I hope he wins. (Score:3, Interesting)
He should win. Then finally it will become blatantly obvious that copyrights and patents must be abolished.
Trojan Room Coffee Pot (Score:5, Interesting)
The Trojan Room Coffee Pot cam predates this by two years, though that was on a local network and didn't use a web browser. It didn't appear on the Internet until November, 1993.
The Netscape Fishcam shortly followed. I believe the first outdoor cam was at an antartic research station shortly after that.
Moving images were enabled by the "server-push" feature in Netscape's server and client. I'm assuming this used that technology, which of necessity would have pre-dated this claim. I would think the use case would be obvious.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trojan_Room_coffee_pot [wikipedia.org]
Patent Section 16 Fig 9 (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Really? (Score:2, Interesting)
Until the patent expires, in two years ago
Re:Let him succeed (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh no, he won't sue the entire planet. You see, most reasonable countries, like Europe, don't have software patents.
Re:Really? (Score:5, Interesting)
How bad does it have to get before the entire system is scrapped?
My guess: When patents for methods of political fundraising become popular (and begin to be litigated), we will begin to see fundamental change within the patent process.
Re:Really? (Score:5, Interesting)
Ah, no...Lee invented the web, not the 'internet'. The internet has been around much, much longer than the 'web'.
I agree...hand in your geek card.
Re:Really? (Score:2, Interesting)
IANAPL, but looking at that patent, I can name several technologies which existed before it, peforming parts of the same functions. Problem is, the companies which made those products are mostly out of business by now and what hardware isn't in the Computer Museum is in a landfill in China, where a lot of the old computers went to be scraped for gold and copper.
Did you see the recent iPad suit where apple won based on the design of the ipad that was identical to that of something in a movie like 40 years prior? Technologies existing first, is no more a guarantee than some guy walking in and saying "nuh-uh" these days. Even WITH photos.