New Judge to be assigned to EOLAS lawsuit appeal
http://www.out-law.com/page-7160
The EOLAS lawsuit has a long history, and was the reason behind the changes MS made to the way Internet Explorer handles embedded active content (update 912945):
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/ie6/using/techinfo/activexupdate.mspx
In 2003, a jury ruled that Microsoft must pay $1.47 for every copy of Windows sold between November 1998 and September 2001. Using a formula based on revenue, and an average sale price of $61 per copy of Windows, the damages awarded to those behind EOLAS was set at $521 million.
It will be interesting to see how much MS is eventually ordered to pay and whether EOLAS will succeed in having damages assessed based on worldwide revenue, or whether the courts will agree with MS that damages should be based on US revenues.
The EOLAS patent at the centre of the lawsuit is a US patent, not a worldwide patent, so I can see how Microsoft's argument to restrict the basis of damages consideration to USA revenue can have merit.
Information about the patent is here:
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=5,838,906.PN.&OS=PN/5,838,906&RS=PN/5,838,906