On Thu, Dec 24, 2009 at 1:49 PM, justin joseph <[email protected]>wrote:

> On Thu, Dec 24, 2009 at 1:09 PM, Ajay Pal Singh Atwal
> <[email protected]> wrote:
> >
> >
> > 2009/12/24 Vickram Crishna <[email protected]>
> >>
> >>
> >> On Thu, Dec 24, 2009 at 11:58 AM, Sudev Barar <[email protected]> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> 2009/12/24 Guru गुरु <[email protected]>:
> >>> > Microsoft was accused by i4i of infringing on a 1998 XML patent in
> its Word
> >>> > 2003 and Word 2007 programs. Word uses XML, or the Extensible Markup
> >>> > Language, to open .XML, .DOCX, and .DOCM files.The initial ruling in
> the
> >>> > court dispute between i4i and Microsoft was made in August. At that
> time
> >>>
> >>> Can any one comment what this may do to the document standards that M$
> >>> was pushing vis ODF?
> >>
> >> Can anyone comment on how quickly this ban can be enforced in India? It
> may help with our efforts to get state governments to remove specifications
> (implicit or otherwise) for proprietary software when releasing
> tenders/orders.
> >
> > I am not sure if US patents laws regarding software are applicable in
> India. But MS being a US company (and functioning under US laws) may on its
> own withdraw/ replace the version of the office suite for sale in India.
>

The HT report says clearly that as far as they are concerned, this is only
applicable in the US. I think we need to file a charge at any police station
and raid any shop, preferably an official authorised branded shop, selling
the impugned software, as India is a signatory to TRIPS and should comply
with attempts to prevent breaches of global law.

>
> This is what they are doing is what I read on the BBC.  The specific
> feature is to be removed and they have mostly
> done so in anticipation of this judgment.  I think MS claimed that the
> feature was less used.
>

The 'feature' is the ability to open .xml, .docx, and .docm files. It helps
the application open its own files, and that is a little used feature? Do
people who buy MS Word use it to open OpenOffice files? That might make a
nice headline.

So they needed a workaround, having fallen into their own 'proprietary'
trap, and chose to suborn the global standards process in order to achieve
this purpose.

>
> But like Sudev asked, has this feature got into the the document
> standard and what are the implications therein?
>

Which document standard? Features other than the above? Analyses welcome.


-- 
Vickram
http://communicall.wordpress.com
_______________________________________________
network mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.fosscom.in/listinfo.cgi/network-fosscom.in

Reply via email to