I just read over at peerfeer.org that the US patent office has finally got a clue and has reversed the phony browser patent plugin held by Eolas Technologies. In case you missed this debacle, Eolas pulled one over on the patent office to claim ownership of the "technology" for using browser plugins, in violation of Title 35, Chapter 10, Section 103, paragraph (a) of US patent law.
A patent may not be obtained the invention is not identically disclosed or described as set forth in section 102 of this title, if the differences between the subject matter sought to be patented and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains. Patentability shall not be negatived by the manner in which the invention was made.
There was plenty of prior art for browser plugins, and it was arguably an obvious solution to the problem of having to pack every kind of file viewer into the browser. Eolas used their counterfeit patent to try to muscle Microsoft out of distributing their browser, which I wouldn't have missed anyway. However, the patent had dangerous ramifications for all web browsers everywhere. So have a beer tonight in honor of the overturned patent. The web is a better place without fictitious claims to "intellectual property".