In a “fairly unusual” move the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is <a href=http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,113393,00.asp>reexaminating patent number 5,838,906</a> which was the subject of the recent Eolas lawsuit. This was where Microsoft was ordered to pay $520.6 million in damags to Eolas Technologies and the University of California Regents for violation of the patent. After that judgement Tim Berners-Lee and W3C presented the patent office with two prior art publications relating to this patent. This could be good news for Macromedia and others who rely on this embedded browser plug-in technology. After the lawsuit, related to this or not, Microsoft announced that they would no longer be releasing standalone versions of the Internet Explorer browser. Hmm …

Related entry:
<a href=http://www.makeyougohmm.com/pivotblg/entry.php?uid=standard-262>Uh oh for browser plug-in vendors like Macromedia Flash?</a>