News briefs: Patent call goes against Microsoft

To continue reading, register here and become an Insider. You'll get free access to premium content from CIO, Computerworld, CSO, InfoWorld, and Network World. See more Insider content or sign in.

• The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office last week endorsed a Web-browsing patent Microsoft is accused of infringing. The office reconfirmed a patent held by Eolas Technologies that allows interactive content to be embedded in a Web site, which is a common practice on the Internet. Eolas is a spinoff of the University of California. According to a university news release, the patent office completed a "re-examination process" on the original patent, which was published in November 1998, and plans to issue a re-examination certificate. "This decision ensures that the patent rights of the public institution that developed this technology, a significant innovation with wide-reaching public benefits and use, will be protected," said James Holst, general counsel for the University of California. Microsoft said it is studying the patent office's decision but still plans to present its side of the argument at the retrial.
• McAfee has reached a proposed settlement with federal regulators that the company hopes will end a three-year investigation into its accounting practices. The software vendor announced last week that it has set aside $50 million to pay an anticipated penalty. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission began informally investigating McAfee, then called Network Associates, after the company changed the way it booked software revenue in December 2000. A formal SEC investigation was announced in March 2002. Previously, McAfee had recognized software revenue when it shipped software to distributors, but after the 2000 changes, it began counting sales only when software had been sold by the distributor, says Kent Roberts, executive vice president and general counsel with McAfee. The SEC has been examining whether McAfee properly accounted for this transition, Roberts says. The proposed settlement calls for additional measures beyond the $50 million penalty, but Roberts declined to elaborate on what they might be.
• Vonage Holdings, the rapidly growing provider of residential VoIP service, declined to comment last week on a press report that the company was planning to go public. The Wall Street Journal reported that Vonage has selected four banks to manage its IPO and that the company was planning to file IPO paperwork with the SEC within a couple of weeks. Vonage expects the IPO to raise $600 million, the newspaper reported. In August, several media outlets reported that Vonage planned an IPO, but the company also refused to comment then. Some analysts see now as the perfect time for Vonage to go public. On Sept. 6, Vonage announced it had exceeded 1 million VoIP lines in service in North America, the first VoIP provider to do so. In March, Vonage announced it surpassed 500,000 lines.
• Google is unlikely to have a problem finding staff for an R&D center the company plans to set up in China, according to comments made by Kai-Fu Lee, the head of the company's Chinese operations, in an interview with the Chinese press. Google received more than 1,000 résumés within five hours of posting an online notice for available positions at the R&D center, Lee says, according to a recent interview with the 21st Century Business Herald newspaper. In addition, many more applications were sent to his personal e-mail address, he says. Lee, a former Microsoft employee, faces a trial over whether competitive concerns raised by his former employer prevent him for taking a job with Google. On Sept. 14, a Washington state judge ruled that Lee could begin work for Google to set up an R&D center in China while he awaits a trial that will start in January. Shortly after that decision, Lee left for China to begin work for Google.
• Nortel reshuffled its business units last week, creating two product groups and four regional groups for driving sales and support for the product areas. The two product groups are the Enterprise Solutions and Packet Networks group and the Mobility and Converged Core Networks group. Steve Slattery will run the Enterprise group as president, while Richard Lowe will head the Mobility group. The move comes a little more than a year after a previous shakeup, where Nortel consolidated its four former product groups - Wireline, Wireless, Optical and Enterprise - into its Enterprise and Carrier business units. Malcolm Collins, former head of the Enterprise business unit, is leaving the company.

Read more about software in Network World's Software section.