Re: EOLAS ACQUIRES MILESTONE INTERNET SOFTWARE PATENT
James Gosling (jag@scndprsn.eng.sun.com)
Mon, 21 Aug 1995 14:48:43 +0800
> > The licensed technology was invented in 1993 by a team led by Eolas CEO, Dr.
> > Michael Doyle, a UCSF faculty member and past Director of the university's
>
> In that case, the patent is worthless. Dynamic exchange of executable
> code over the internet for use in rendering documents has been addressed
> many times before. For example, a standard for the exchange of such
> information was discussed at the spring 1992 meeting of the implementors
> working group of NISO sub-committee Z39.50 which took place at the
> Library of Congress in Washington.
There's also Java which was started in 1990 and first demo'd in 1991;
the NeWS window system which transmitted executable application code
starting in 1985; PostScript was really dynamic exchange of executable
code for rendering documents, and it was done in 1980. Based of course
on ideas from Interpress where executable code for rendering documents
was being transmitted in the late 70s. Then there was a lisp system,
whose name a forget, which ran on Xerox's PDP-10 clones (MAXC) and
could dynamically download ui's/behaviour/graphics to Alto's in the
early 70s.