Eolas Ruling to Cause IE Changes

A two-year patent dispute will finally begin to affect Web developers and users in 2006, as Microsoft makes changes to Internet Explorer (IE) to avoid further infringement on a patent held by Eolas and the University of California. The changes mean Web developers will have to redesign some pages that use ActiveX controls or else their users will face minor inconveniences when accessing interactive elements on such pages. However, the changes to IE are less disruptive than those Microsoft originally warned about in 2003.

Changes Less Disruptive than Expected

The patent in question covers the ability of a Web browser to automatically launch other applications in order to support interactive elements, such as ActiveX controls, embedded in a Web page. In fall 2003, shortly after a district court jury found that IE infringed on the patent, Microsoft warned that it would have to make significant changes to IE that could severely degrade the user experience. Specifically, each affected control on a Web page would have presented a dialog box before allowing the user to view the element. To avoid such prompts, Web developers would have had to rewrite their pages in certain specified ways.