Lawsuit Drives Browser Changes

Following a jury verdict against Microsoft in its patent litigation with Eolas, Microsoft has begun previewing changes to Internet Explorer (IE) that, if implemented, will force many Web designers to alter their sites to avoid unpleasant user experiences. Microsoft is making available a test version of IE which it believes will sidestep Eolas’s patent and allow Web designers to see how their sites will work with the potential changes.

Focus on ActiveX Controls

The dispute centers on IE’s handling of ActiveX controls and Java applets. Eolas has claimed, and a jury agreed, that IE violates its patent because it provides a way for ActiveX controls and Java applets embedded on a Web page to automatically download additional data.

As Microsoft has interpreted the jury’s decision, all ActiveX controls or Java applets are affected unless they meet one of two conditions:

• They do not reference any remote data
• They are created dynamically from script that is loaded from another location.

To respond to the verdict, Microsoft is proposing a change to IE: when the altered version of IE encounters a page containing an affected control, it will present the user with a dialog box before loading the external data. (See the illustration “User Prompt Interrupts Page“.) In Microsoft’s opinion, this interruption means the process is no longer automatic and therefore not subject to Eolas’s patent.