This would impact many browsers, not just IE.

[Spock]

Posted: 2003-09-23, 12:07 am

ref1: http://netscape.com.com/2102-1104_2-506 ... =printthis
ref2: http://netscape.com.com/2100-1104_2-507 ... mynetscape

Microsoft ordered to pay $521 million
By Michael Kanellos and Jim Hu
CNET News.com
August 11, 2003, 5:29 PM PT

A federal court in Chicago has ruled that Microsoft must pay $521 million to a Web technology company and the University of California after finding that the software giant's Internet Explorer infringed one of their patents.

Eolas suit may spark HTML changes

By Paul Festa
CNET News.com
September 19, 2003, 3:53 PM PT

As anxiety builds throughout the Web over the patent threatening Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser, the Web's leading standards group is considering modifying the medium's lingua franca itself, HTML, to address the same threat.

[Tarmithius]

I would like to add some further information to this. The patent was effectively nullified by the US patent office. Here is a link to the story (The Register)

[Spock]

I would like to add some further information to this. The patent was effectively nullified by the US patent office. Here is a link to the story (The Register)

Thank you for that. For those not wishing to actually visit the link, the first paragraph reads:

Eolas' web patent nullified
By Andrew Orlowski in San Francisco
Published Friday 5th March 2004 23:50 GMT
In a very rare, but not unprecedented move, the US Patent Office has nullified a contentious technology patent. A spin off from the University of California, but described as a "one man operation", Eolas last year won $521 million from Microsoft for breach of what the former describes as its "web application platform". US Patent 5,838,906, granted in 1998, protects the execution of remote code embedded in hypertext pages.

There is more, including the fact that the plaintiff has 60 days to appeal. Seeing as the date of the story is almost a year old, I would imagine that either no appeal was made or it was turned down.