U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has confirmed that the patent 5,838,906 belongs to Eolas Technologies.

The patent in question describes the way in which one can insert multimedia content within Internet sites, a technology similar to the one used by ActiveX.

In 1999, Eolas Technologies sued Microsoft for copyright infringement in Internet Explorer and in 2003, the company received $520 million in damages. In March 2005, the Court of Appeal rejected the decision and had the patent reexamined to establish its validity.

In a statement, Microsoft said it continues to pursue its appeal against the patent infringement case and expects to see the case through to a 'successful resolution'.

If the patent is granted to Eolas, programs like Macromedia Flash, QuickTime, RealOne Player, Acrobat Reader, Sun Java Virtual Machine and Windows Media Player will also be affected.

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