I think this has been discussed here before, but a while ago.

The latest Cringely [link|http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20021107.html|column] at PBS discusses what he thinks MS should do with their cash hoard (pay off all the antitrust suits), but how that strategy might not work with Eolas (a company that owns a far-reaching WWW patent). Eolas claims they want more than money.

Cringely quotes Doyle of Eolas, talking about a "possible" what-if:

"One possible scenario is that Eolas would have the power necessary to re-establish the browser-as-application-platform as a viable competitor to Windows. That would be an interesting outcome, wouldn't it? How much would that be worth? The Web-OS concept, where the browser is the interface to all interactive apps on the client side, was always a killer idea. It still is. It lost momentum not because it wasn't economically or technically feasible, but because MS made it unlikely for anybody but them to make money on the Web-client side. Therefore, nobody could justify the necessary investment to take a really-serious shot at it. It doesn't have to be that way, does it? Just think of how we could use this patent to re-invigorate and expand the competitive landscape in this recently-moribund industry. What if we could do what the DOJ couldn't, and in the process make Eolas and everybody else, possibly excluding MS, richer? Wouldn't Eolas stand to profit more in such a scenario than any kind of pre-trial settlement could provide? Wouldn't everybody else?"

It's hard to imagine that actually coming to pass now, but it's a nice future to think about.

Cheers,
Scott.