On Wednesday 12 Aug 2009, Terry Coles wrote:
> Although the first reaction is to say that this 'couldn't happen to a nicer
> company' :-), the reality is much more serious. Both of these patents
> could affect ODF and since XML is the vehicle for both claims, even wider
> than that. If anyone needs clearer evidence than this that software patents
> are a liability rather than an asset, then they are living in cloud cuckoo
> land (or got vested interests).
Small update. Apparently, in this case at least, the patent only applies to
what MS call 'custom XML'. MS wanted OASIS to include custom XML into ODF,
but this request was turned down, so ODF seems to be safe for the moment at
least.
Evens so, it may be too early to breath again; custom XML seems to be a
technique which uses XML schemas to define the structure of data that is then
subsequently used in the word document by name instead of by reference. I
thought that is precisely what XML did, although not necessarily within a word
processor. XML is also extensible to allow people to come up with different
ways to manipulate their data. So the patent takes an International open
standard that specifies a way to manipulate data and uses it inside an
application designed to manipulate words (that has been around for about 30
years and calls it innovative.
Hardly!
--
Terry Coles
64 bit computing with Kubuntu Linux
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