Appeals court revisits Eolas decision

“A federal appeals court partially reversed a lower-court decision that had exposed Microsoft to $565 million in damages.

The patent infringement case, brought by the University of California and its Eolas Technologies spinoff, had riled the Web over potential ripple effects that could have forced changes in millions of Web pages that use plug-in applications like Macromedia Flash and Adobe Acrobat that run inside the browser.

Both sides claimed victory in the mixed ruling, which reversed part of the lower-court ruling, affirmed other parts of it, vacated the decision as a whole and sent it back for a new trial.

“We cleared most of the serious issues, so I would consider this a victory for the university,” UC spokesman Trey Davis said. “On the issues that would have mattered most to Microsoft, they lost.”

Microsoft said that, on the contrary, the company had won on the most important points, particularly its claim that UC’s patent was predated by similar technology by artist and software engineer Perry Pei-Yuan Wei.”

Full article: Appeals court revisits Eolas decision