IE vs Eolas
December 11th, 2005 by jeremychone
The famous Microsoft vs Eolas litigation has reached a critical juncture following the U.S. Patent Office’s decision in September upholding a patent on browser technology which the University of California has licensed to Eolas.
Not surprisingly, Microsoft has decided to change the way its Web browser works rather than paying royalties. Luckily for Microsoft and probably for users too, the change does not seem to be as disruptive as originally thought. User won’t see much of a difference, and the modifications on the application side seem to be modest, as specified by Microsoft instructuctions.
Consequently, Web masters and IT organizations will probably the ones most impacted by this change, since they will have to update their Web applications. Also, it is not clear to me how this case will affect other browsers, such as Firefox, Opera, and Safari. If it does not, it could be a good opportunity for those communities to lure users away from Microsoft IE.