On November 17, a company called Eolas Technologies was awarded a patent covering the use of embedded program objects, or applets, within hypermedia documents. Eolas say the patent also covers any algorithm which implements dynamic bi-directional communications between web browsers and external applications. The software was invented in 1993 by a team led by Michael Doyle, a UCSF faculty member and now CEO of Eolas. The first weblet Doyle created was an interactive 3D medical visualization application which used a three-tier distributed object architecture over the net to allow a remote server farm to generate anatomical images within the Mosaic web browser. In 1995, the company licensed the technology from UCSF and applied for a patent. The awarding of that patent has sparked intense debate about the implications for Sun’s Java programming language, Microsoft’s ActiveX and other technologies designed to execute code within browsers. PBS’s Robert X. Cringely predicts that a sweetheart licensing deal will be announced soon between Microsoft and Eolas, after which Eolas will take legal action against AOL and Sun.
