CNET covers the continuing, largely mute, flailings of the Eolas-Microsoft court battle with a piece that makes the whole affair seem quite dramatic. Eolas initially won a patent battle against Microsoft in a district court that didn't seem to have much truck with prior art. The case made news primarily because it looked like it would cost Microsoft half a billion dollars and cause ad servers to stop using common ways of delivering rich media. But the Patent Office, in a rare move, took up the case, realizing Eolas's patent was silly. Microsoft is well on the way to having it invalidated (a fact that made the CNET story in the last paragraph on the last page), and the current proceedings are important only in the contingency that something goes awry with that process.