Four years ago, Eolas Technologies Inc. and McKool Smith lost a high-profile patent trial against Amazon, Google and others over fundamental e-commerce technologies.

Before the trial ended, Eolas had returned to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to refine its “distributed hypermedia” patent. But U.S. District Judge Leonard Davis of the Eastern District of Texas ruled that McKool could not help them with patent prosecution for one year “following the entry of a final non-appealable judgment.”