On Tue, Jul 14, 2009 at 11:51 AM, Dave Cridland<[email protected]> wrote: > That's *not* Google. Google may be many things, but to the best of my > experience they've never done a submarine patent job. > > I am not a patent lawyer. > > That said, XEP-0009 (and other XEPs, feel free to find those yourself) does > look as if it might be argued to be covered by this, by the kinds of idiots > that like to register these patents in the first place.
The patent they applied for predates XML-RPC, and is generally believed to be a generally defensive patent. I'd get the word officially from Dave Winer directly, however, Dave at last specifically gives a license to implement the specification in code, located at http://www.xmlrpc.com/spec: This document may not be modified in any way, such as by removing the copyright notice or references to UserLand or other organizations. Further, while these copyright restrictions apply to the written XML-RPC specification, no claim of ownership is made by UserLand to the protocol it describes. Any party may, for commercial or non-commercial purposes, implement this protocol without royalty or license fee to UserLand. The limited permissions granted herein are perpetual and will not be revoked by UserLand or its successors or assigns. -- -- Thomas
