This is actually old news. It first hit the online news sources in August. To get a better understanding of it, The Register has the current story at <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/12/22/microsoft_loses_word_patent_appeal/>, which also contains links to the previous stories.
You could also search Slashdot for previous stories. The current one is covered at <http://yro.slashdot.org/story/09/12/22/1936214/Microsoft-Ordered- To-Pay-290M-Stop-Selling-Word> (or try this shortened one <http://tinyurl.com/yenplnv>) Also, if you search the archives of this mailing list, you'll find several posts about it there (check the posts for August 2009). The problem arose from the way MS was using the custom XML in their XML editor. The method was ruled to breach a patent held by a smallish company. At the time, there was some concern about the OO.o use of XML (as we all know, the ODF files are a set of compressed XML files). However, the patent owner has specifically stated that our implementation is not in contravention of their patent, so we're safe. > Hi all, > > Hamish Bell wrote: > > Some high tech code :) > > > > To be honest, I'm not entirely honest ... perhaps someone knows a bit > > more than us? > > This page will do a better job of explaining what xml is than I can, > http://www.w3.org/standards/xml/ . > > The law suit concerns a special form of xml that is used in Word. Most > likely the DTDs that were used. > > Hope this helps. > > -- > Andy > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] > For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected] > -- Alex Fisher Co-Lead, CD-ROM Project OpenOffice.org Marketing Community Contact Australia/New Zealand http://distribution.openoffice.org/cdrom/
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