Eolas v. Microsoft (04-1234)(On appeal at the Federal Circuit)
The parties in this case include Eolas and the University of California as plaintiffs and Microsoft as the defendant. In addition to the parties, a number of amicus briefs were filed at the Federal Circuit by interested parties. These parties include: AOL; Association for Competitive Technology; Autodesk; Bentley Systems; Intel; Macromedia; Netscape; Oracle; Professor Joe Miller; Sun Microsystems; and Wacom Technology.
Amicus Briefs:
All of the Amicus briefs support Microsoft’s position — looks like nobody supports the little guy anymore.
- Association for Competitive Technology amicus brief [PDF]. ACT argues that the District Court made a major mistake by failing to undertake "reasonable efforts to find out" what was known or obvious to those skilled in the art at the time of the patent application.
- Autodesk, Bentley, Macromedia, WACOM, Professor Miller amicus brief [PDF]. This group argues that section 271(f) was incorrectly expanded by the district court.
- Netscape, AOL, Intel, Sun Microsystems amicus brief [PDF]. Netscape & friends argue that the Court should find "that section 271(f) does not apply to components manufactured outside of the U.S., even if they are manufactured using code, prototypes, molds, or templates designed and developed domestically."
Party Briefs:
Thanks to Gerry Stegmaier (ACT’s attorney of record) and John Vandenberg (attorney of record for Autodesk, et al.) for providing copies of the briefs.
Robins Kaplan represents Eolas — they have a unique trial preparation technique: Hung Jury.