Browser News: Browsers & US Patent 5,838,906

Browsers & US Patent 5,838,906

This discusses implications of Eolas’ US Patent 5,838,906 on designers:

Introduction
Impact on Users
Impact on Designers
Resources

Note : the information presented here is kept simple, with just the essentials of what designers should know. Follow the links, especially the resources, to learn about the issues in greater depth.

Introduction

In Aug. 2003 Eolas Technologies won a court case that changes how browsers should handle embedded objects — applets and plug-ins, e.g. Adobe’s (Acrobat) Reader, Apple’s QuickTime, Macromedia’s Flash, Macromedia’s Shockwave, Microsoft ActiveX Controls, Microsoft’s Windows Media Player, RealNetworks’ RealOne, and Sun’s Java Virtual Machine — affecting users, designers, websites, and software tools.

The court case awarded Eolas major damages for Microsoft’s alleged infringement of US Patent 5,838,906, which covers ways to embed objects in HTML pages — e.g. using the <applet>, <embed>, or <object> tags — where some of the objects’ data are external to the page, and where there is a control path to the object’s implementation to support user interaction. In addition to damages, Eolas wanted license fees for continued use of its patent, and threatened to stop distribution of Internet Explorer if fees were not paid [more…]. In mid 2007 Microsoft and Eolas agreed to an out of court settlement which allows Microsoft to use the Eolas patent, but other browser makers remain at risk.

Note: this patent could impact other browser makers because Internet Explorer was simply doing what the standards say it should do, and all standards-compliant browsers support embedded objects per the HTML standards; Eolas could seek damages and license fees from all other browser makers, including AOL, Apple, the Mozilla Foundation, the SeaMonkey Council, Opera Software, and, ironically, the Worldwide Web Consortium, which is both the maker of the Amaya browser, and the organization which established the element of the standard to which Eolas claims ownership. [more…]

It may turn out that the patent will be voided, however, this could take a long time, and in the meanwhile some browser makers have made changes to their browsers to circumvent the patent in question. Microsoft rolled out an update to Internet Explorer to avoid infringing the patent, though Microsoft’s later agreement with Eolas enabled Microsoft to reverse the changes made in that update. Opera made a similar change in v9 of its browser suite, but does not have an agreement with Eolas which would let Opera undo its change. Other browser makers would surely follow suit when Eolas decides to go after them too.

Note: the fact that Microsoft has come to an agreement with Eolas which enables Microsoft to undo the browser changes it had made earlier does not mean that designers can ignore this issue. In the first place, at least one other browser is affected. In the second place, some Internet Explorer users will not get the update which reverses the earlier change. So the negative impact of the Eolas patent will persist for many years.

Impact on Users

The impact on users resulting from browser changes made to circumvent the patent is:

With some browsers the user must consent to activating an object each time a page embeds an object covered by the patent for which the designer has not coded a work-around. A common message is "Click to activate and use this control". This will inconvenience the user and make it more likely that the user will opt to go to sites which don’t do this. Microsoft discusses this, and some implications, in a note about its Internet Explorer ActiveX Update.
If the user chooses not to give consent to activate objects, many pages will break.
If the user chooses to disable embedded objects, many pages will break.
If the user chooses to disable JavaScript or JScript, many pages will break.

Impact on Designers

Designers should evaluate the effect of the changes on their sites now and update sites to minimize the impact on users.

The impact on designers is

If the HTML code for an object specifies a source of external data, replace the code with a call to a JavaScript or JScript function in a separate JavaScript file to dynamically generate the HTML code, e.g. using the document.write function. Microsoft has listed several ways of Loading Interactive Controls Externally, but appears to have removed this documentation. The unavoidable downside to this is that this requires that the user not disable JavaScript or JScript, and those users who do disable them will experience web pages that are degraded or unusable.
Designers should get updates to software tools such as code generators that are updated to help automate the above process. Note that some plug-in makers will offer new tools to help with this.