Setback for Microsoft Ripples Through the World Wide Web

Setback for Microsoft Ripples Through the World Wide Web: "Last month, Microsoft suffered a stinging setback in a patent-infringement case when a federal jury awarded $521 million to a former University of California researcher. But this time, the rest of the industry is not smiling.
To comply with the court ruling, Microsoft has informed a handful of software companies and the World Wide Web Consortium, the leading Web standards organization, that soon it will probably make changes in its Internet browser, the on-ramp to the Web for 90 percent of computer users. The impact, according to industry executives and Web experts, could be disruptive and costly for other Internet software companies and big commercial Web sites.
``The ripple effect of this could be very dramatic,'' said Daniel Weitzner, director of technology and society activities at the Web consortium. ``What you have here is the adjudication of a private lawsuit between two companies, and no one thought about the rest of the Web.'' "