>
> good grief, i'm surprised they haven't decided to patent air & water. thx, rick, i
>guess.
>
> Folks -- go read this -- it's spooky. The patent seems to overlap W3C initiatives on
>CSS & XML.
>
> How in the dickens could they get a patent on something they didn't develop??
Patent law has been bent to accommodate European law (Codex treaty)
which permits the patenting of things that have not been invented. It also
opens the door to FDA strongly regulating (banning) megadose vitamins and
herbal medicines. The pharmaceutical industry was very much in favor of
this. It might just be interpreted as allowing them to patent naturally
occurring molecules, without all the research needed to alter them just
enough to satisfy patent examiners.
Also, this may be a method patent, which details HOW someone else's
invention is used. Someone patented the feeding of aspirin to pigs to
make them gain weight. Someone else patented the mixing of salt and
lactic acid to form a potent fungicide, despite the fact that this often
happens in your stomach.
That said, it may not hold water on appeal -- if anyone can afford to
fight MS's money heavy lawyers.
> Specifically, it claims that the method of applying style sheets in
> documents rendered by the customer's computer (as is done by all Web
> browsers) is different from previous style sheet implementations.
I am a patent holder. I am growing more ambivalent as to whether
software should be patentable per se. The whole area of patent vs
copyright, and sale vs lease is a matter of contention. I feel they were
idiots to lean on leases instead of book-like sale protected by
International copyright conventions. But that is just my point of view...
New Jersy's insistence on income taxes on software leased in that state
may yet change things.
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