Patent troll fails at latest attempt to patent ‘interactive web’

The company Eolas, known as a patent troll, has failed to obtain a broad patent for ‘interactive web content’. With this, Eolas wanted to sue large internet companies in order to earn license fees.

A US judge has ruled that Eolas’s two patents with numbers 5,838,906 and 7,599,985 should not be used to sue companies, according to documents online by Arstechnica put† Both patents, which describe the same technique for interactive web content, had previously been declared invalid, but Eolas made one last attempt to allow them to be used in lawsuits.

Now that a judge has again thwarted Eolas, the company described as a patent troll seems to have no further options. If Eolas had his way, a lawsuit against many major internet companies such as Adobe, Amazon, Apple, eBay and Google could have gone ahead. These companies had been sued for patent infringement for interactive web content. In total, Eolas had demanded about $1 billion in compensation.

Websites with online video, search suggestions and other interactive elements, among other things, would infringe the web patent, if found valid. A total of 22 internet companies were indicted in 2009. Earlier, Oracle and Microsoft, among others, already concluded a deal with Eolas, whereby large amounts were paid.