| Eolas, one of the more notorious patent trolls to hit the web, began as a UCSF spinoff, founded by a UCSF employee in 1994. Eolas claimed to have invented the first interactive web browsing experience, and patented[1] the concept of interactive web browser plugins (applets). Doyle (founder of Eolas) first targeted Microsoft in what would turn into a long streak of litigation; he initially approached Microsoft with an offer to license his invention. The company declined, and Doyle sued. After drawn out legal proceedings, the parties reached a settlement, with a $30.4 million chunk [2] going to the University of California. Eolas went on to sue[3] 22 other of the largest internet companies for violating the same patent. Eolas wasn't claiming to have invented "interactive" computer programs in general, since this would be absurd. Eolas simply had the foresight to be first in line to file for a patent that combined the idea of interactivity (via external programs) with the nascent technology of web browsing, which was, to my knowledge, still "non-interactive" in 1994. That said, Eolas might not [4] have even been the first to demonstrate the idea of interactive web browsing. In fact, I'd be surprised if Engelbart's line of research at SRI in the `60's didn't establish prior art decades before. Regardless of whichever party happened to come up with an idea as simple as interactive web browsing, it hardly makes sense to give this party such sweeping power to extort the rest of the industry for the decade or two that follow. [1]https://www.google.com/patents/US5838906 [2]http://blog.seattlepi.com/microsoft/2007/10/10/microsofts-eo... [3]http://blog.seattlepi.com/microsoft/2009/10/06/after-beating... [4] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-talk/1995JulAug/0446... |