Editing ViolaWWW (section)

==ViolaWWW in patent lawsuits==

In 1999, [[Eolas Technologies]] and the [[University of California]] filed suit in the [[US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois]] against Microsoft, claiming infringement of U.S. patent 5,838,906, (covering browser [[Plug-in (computing)|plugins]]) by the [[Internet Explorer]] web browser. Eolas won the initial case in August 2003 and was awarded damages of ${{Formatprice|521000000|3}} from Microsoft.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-web-plugins/2003Oct/0000.html |title=Eolas Technologies, Inc., and The Regents of the University of California v. Microsoft Corporation}} 99 C 626</ref> The District Court reaffirmed the jury's decision in January 2004.

In March 2005, an appeals court directed that there be a retrial, overturning a decision that Microsoft pay $521 million in damages. The appeals court said that the initial ruling had ignored two key arguments put forward by Microsoft. Microsoft had wanted to show the court that ViolaWWW was [[prior art]], since it was created in 1993 at the University of California, a year before the key patent were filed. Microsoft had also suggested that Michael David Doyle, Eolas' founder and a former University of California researcher, had intentionally concealed his knowledge of ViolaWWW when filing the patent claim.<ref>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4314989.stm  Court stays $521m Microsoft fine], [[BBC News]], March 3, 2005.</ref> Microsoft subsequently settled with Eolas, in August 2007, without a retrial.<ref>{{cite news  | title = High-profile, 8-year patent dispute settled  | url = http://www.seattlepi.com/business/329766_msfteolas31.html  | newspaper = Seattle Post-Intelligencer  | date = 2007-08-30 }}</ref> Eolas continued to file suits against dozens of other technology companies.

In February 2012 a Texas jury found that two of Eolas' patents were invalid after testimony from several defendants including Tim Berners-Lee and Pei-Yuan Wei, credited as creator of the Viola browser. The testimony professed that the Viola browser included Eolas' claimed inventions before the filing date (September 7, 1993). There is "substantial evidence that Viola was publicly known and used" before the plaintiffs' alleged conception date, it added. The ruling effectively ended a pending lawsuit against 22 companies including [[Yahoo]], [[Google]], and many online retailers.<ref>{{cite news|last=Samuels|first=Julie|title=Why the Patent System Doesn't Play Well with Software: If Eolas Went the Other Way|url=https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/02/why-patent-system-doesnt-play|newspaper=Electronic Frontier Foundation|date=February 15, 2012}}</ref>