It looks like the director of the US Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO) ordered a re-examination of the Eolas plug-in patent (patent #5,838,906). It's about time. I guess the W3C barked loud enough to get their attention. Apparently, less than .5% of patents get re-examined and less than 2% of those are requested at such a high level.
Concurrently, Microsoft is appealing the court ruling that would have them pay US$520.8 million. During their appeal process, they are working on work-arounds so that plug-ins can still be used, but outside of the patent infringement.
Looks like things have come a good ways since my last post. Good luck guys. Getting this thing knocked out will prove quite beneficial to the nearly all web-enabled industries.