For those who are interested in the Microsoft Case, here is a link to the Office Action rejecting all ten of Eolas’ claims under 103(a) for obviousness. The rejection is based primarily on references from Berners-Lee and Raggett. The Office Action appears well reasoned and nicely written. I suspect that the Patent Examiner (Andrew Caldwell) was given much more time to research and write this OA is than the norm.
Links:
U.S. Patent No. 5,838,906
ZDNet Article by Paul Festa
Download eolas_office_action.pdf
Update: After a reader e-mailed, I looked into the case a little more. Although I am not completely familiar with the case, the headline of the OA could be “Eolas wins Round I of Highly Anticipated Re-Examination.” In the most recent OA, the Examiner accepted Eolas’ argument as to the initial ground for rejection — thus, according to the Examiner, the combination of references cited in the original application do not render the patent obvious. Now, in Round II, the Examiner has cited a new set of references. As you may know, this type of back-and-forth is common in patent prosecution.