I think were pretty safe from the same thing happening to POI. Based on what I know about file formats, they generally aren't patentable. It is how the data is stored by a particular file format that is patentable. Most modern media formats use some type of compression and this is what the vendors patent. I am sure this is the case with the ASF format. For example, GIF has the same problem. Unisys owns the patent to LZW compression which is what the GIF file format is based on. You cannot write software that creates GIF files without paying a licensing fee to Unisys. I believe that it is Unisys' number one revenue source.
Word and Excel don't offer any innovative way to store data. They are both just one giant data structure. I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft may have already patented the OLE format. Who knows if they even care... Ryan ----- Original Message ----- From: "Andrew C. Oliver" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "POI Developers List" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; "Jakarta General List" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Friday, March 14, 2003 7:57 PM Subject: fair notice > I appologize to those of us who get this 2 times... > > This could later affect POI (http://jakarta.apache.org/poi), but does > not currently: http://www.advogato.org/article/101.html > Granted POI would be in "good company" with a wide berth of software and > there would likely be a retributative effect that > might backfire on Microsoft. > > I'll keep this brief, but the patenting of file formats could be a > disturbing trend. I'll certainly keep an eye on this. > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
