“Web style sheet, plug-in technologies are the latest hot
buttons.”
“Microsoft’s decision to patent style sheets was met with dismay
by a number of standards advocates, who noted that the W3C is
attempting to create publicly available standards in two related
arenas: cascading style sheets and eXtensible Style Language.
Microsoft is an active participant in the W3C standards process in
both of these arenas”
“… we at the W3C are interested in the advancement of open
standards,” said W3C public relations manager Janet Daly,
emphasizing the word “open.”
“In a separate patent issue, Microsoft was sued this week by a
Wheaton, Ill., software developer over the developer’s ownership
claim for the technology that enables the embedding of applets in a
Web page and/or system software….”
“Eolas Technologies Inc. filed suit in federal court on Feb. 2
over claimed infringement on its patent, granted in November of
last year, covering what Eolas claims was “the first browser system
that, for example, allowed for the embedding of small interactive
programs, such as ‘plug-ins,’ ‘applets,’ ‘scriptlets’ or ActiveX
Controls into Web documents.”