Redmond (Washington), Oct 07: Microsoft Corp said it will make technical adjustments to its web browsing software as a result of an August ruling that the software giant infringed on a patent licensed by Eolas Technologies Inc. Microsoft, which is appealing the ruling and the USD 520 million federal jury award to Eolas, said yesterday the changes will be built into new shipments of Internet Explorer -- which comes with the windows operating system -- starting next year.

The browser adjustments are designed to stop Microsoft from infringing on a patent owned by the University of California and licensed exclusively to Eolas. The patent covers technology which allows web page authors to embed and automatically start certain specialised interactive programmes. The technology allowed for the embedding of small interactive programmes such as "plug-ins" or "applets," into world wide web documents. Such programmes are central today to online commerce as they power everything from banner ads to interactive customer service.

The explorer changes will mean an extra step for web surfers who come to a site that employs one of the specialised programmes. They will be prompted with a dialogue box asking them to allow the specialised programme to run, said Michael Wallent, general manager of the Windows client platform. Bureau Report