Changes to the way chemical content is viewed in Web pages
The site http://www.rnsoft.com/products/iewebfix/ describes a "fix" to Web pages necessitated by a court case Microsoft has recently lost. Apparently it dates back to a patent on "in-lined" content of the type produced in Web browsers by the <object>, <embed> and <applet> pages. This patent was apparently infringed by Web browsers and Microsoft, is having to preface each invocation of such content by some sort of disclaimer. This will mean that pages having this sort of content will not display unless the reader dismisses these dialogs. This means that many of the pages written for chemical application, whereby 3D molecular coordinates, spectra etc are inlined into a page, will be disrupted by the above procedures. The solution is to replace the direct <object>, <embed> and <applet> HYML codes by Javascript equivalents that write it out dynamically. The above site provides a converter that does this, although one must assume that many "legacy" pages will not be converted, and hence will become "unviewable". This in the first instance on IE, but it seems inevitable that other browsers will have to follow suite. This sorry saga reminds me of the attempts by I think BT to claim that the hyperlink itself was covered by a patent, and the earlier GIF saga whereby royalties on the compression algorithm were payable. Whether this court case over the in-lined patent will do the chemistry and science communities any good remains to be seen; whatever else, it certainly will be disruptive. -- Henry Rzepa. Imperial College, Chemistry Dept. +44 0778 626 8220 +44 020 7594 5804 (Fax)
On Tuesday 21 October 2003 20:58, Rzepa, Henry wrote:
The site http://www.rnsoft.com/products/iewebfix/
describes a "fix" to Web pages necessitated by a court case Microsoft has recently lost. Apparently it dates back to a patent on "in-lined" content of the type produced in Web browsers by the <DEFANGED_object>, <DEFANGED_embed> and <DEFANGED_applet> pages. This patent was apparently infringed by Web browsers and Microsoft, is having to preface each invocation of such content by some sort of disclaimer. This will mean that pages having this sort of content will not display unless the reader dismisses these dialogs.
To which countries does this patent apply? USA only, or also Europa, and what about the rest of the world? Egon -- egonw@sci.kun.nl PhD on Molecular Representation in Chemometrics Nijmegen University http://www.cac.sci.kun.nl/people/egonw/ GPG: 1024D/D6336BA6
Hi, Will a pop-up blocker stop this? And will IE give us an choice in the Options Menu to automatically accept these sorts of pages so we don't have to get the message each time? regards, PM --On 21 October 2003 19:58 +0100 "Rzepa, Henry" <h.rzepa@imperial.ac.uk> wrote:
The site http://www.rnsoft.com/products/iewebfix/
describes a "fix" to Web pages necessitated by a court case Microsoft has recently lost. Apparently it dates back to a patent on "in-lined" content of the type produced in Web browsers by the <object>, <embed> and <applet> pages. This patent was apparently infringed by Web browsers and Microsoft, is having to preface each invocation of such content by some sort of disclaimer. This will mean that pages having this sort of content will not display unless the reader dismisses these dialogs.
This means that many of the pages written for chemical application, whereby 3D molecular coordinates, spectra etc are inlined into a page, will be disrupted by the above procedures.
The solution is to replace the direct <object>, <embed> and <applet> HYML codes by Javascript equivalents that write it out dynamically. The above site provides a converter that does this, although one must assume that many "legacy" pages will not be converted, and hence will become "unviewable". This in the first instance on IE, but it seems inevitable that other browsers will have to follow suite.
This sorry saga reminds me of the attempts by I think BT to claim that the hyperlink itself was covered by a patent, and the earlier GIF saga whereby royalties on the compression algorithm were payable.
Whether this court case over the in-lined patent will do the chemistry and science communities any good remains to be seen; whatever else, it certainly will be disruptive. --
Henry Rzepa. Imperial College, Chemistry Dept. +44 0778 626 8220 +44 020 7594 5804 (Fax)
_______________________________________________ chemweb mailing list chemweb@imperial.ac.uk http://mailman.ic.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/chemweb List coordinator, Henry Rzepa (mailto:rzepa@ic.ac.uk)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dr Paul May, School of Chemistry, University of Bristol, BRISTOL BS8 1TS, UK tel: +44 (0)117 9289927 fax: +44 (0)117 9251295 mobile: 07811371539 Email: Paul.May@bristol.ac.uk Web: http://www.bristol.ac.uk/Depts/Chemistry/staff/pwm.htm MOTM: http://www.bristol.ac.uk/Depts/Chemistry/MOTM/motm.htm "I see the diamonds, but you only see the rock" - Ronnie James Dio ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Paul May wrote:
Will a pop-up blocker stop this?
And will IE give us an choice in the Options Menu to automatically accept these sorts of pages so we don't have to get the message each time?
I doubt it. I would guess that this popup will be hard-wired into IE as a way to circumvent the legal language of having "automatically executed programs". As long as the user has to do something, it is no longer automatic. If they allow the user to disable the message, they might be infringing the patent again. Of course, you might start seeing unofficial IE cracking programs that disable the pop-up... Regards, Ivan
participants (4)
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E.L. Willighagen
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Ivan Tubert-Brohman
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Paul May
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Rzepa, Henry