Eolas hits back at Microsoft in patent battle:  The University of California has hit back at Microsoft in its pitched patent battle over fundamental Web browsing technology.

UC and its one-man software spinoff Eolas on 16 July filed a brief with the US Court of Appeals for the federal circuit to counter Microsoft's request for an appeal in a patent infringement case that has rattled the Web, from site authors to browser vendors to standards groups.

Last year, Microsoft got socked with a $521m (£279m) judgment after a jury found it guilty of infringing on Eolas's system for running plug-ins, applications like Macromedia's Flash animation software and Adobe's Acrobat document reader that run inside the Web browser.