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MS Files For NZ Patent On XML Word Processor Files

Posted by timothy on from the sneaking-things-through dept.

heretic108 writes "A patent application is currently being examined in New Zealand, which if granted, would bar anyone except Microsoft from using an XML file format for storing Word Processing documents. In contrast to copyrights, patents allow even the most elementary concepts to be patented. Apparently, nobody here is diligently watching out for such ridiculous patents, so the official deadline for submitting objections has passed. This suggests a likelihood that the patent may well be granted. I am not endeared to the thought that I might be breaking the law when I use OpenOffice.org to write documents, especially since the concept of storing docs in an XML format was certainly not thought of by Microsoft, so have written a formal complaint to my Member of Parliament. Hopefully there'll be a public outcry within New Zealand."

8 of 60 comments (clear)

  1. Bit more by Tabercil · · Score: 3, Informative

    Here's the webpage of the New Zealand Intellectual Property Office listing the patent application. Unfortunately, it does not appear to have online the most crucial thing we're all looking for - nitty-gritty details of the patent.

  2. Patents vs. Copyrights by sabNetwork · · Score: 2, Informative
    In contrast to copyrights, patents allow even the most elementary concepts to be patented.

    This is misleading or false. Copyrights do not protect concepts or ideas. A copyright protects a specific expression of an idea. Plagiarizing a copyrighted idea is completely legal.

    Patents protect ideas; copyrights protect the way they are presented.

  3. yea right by McAddress · · Score: 2, Informative
    Hopefully there'll be a public outcry within New Zealand."

    call me a cynic, but considering that 90% of people use an OS that was copied from Apple, (Xerox) and that has since been granted numerous ridiculous patents on stuff they stole, I find it hard to believe that we will see a public outcry over this. the only peole yelling will be the one's yelling about M$'s monopoly, and no one had paid any attention to them yet, and that is unlikely to change in the future.

  4. What NZ Patent Law States by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    From what I read from the NZ Patent law, which has been taken from UK Patent Law the applicant needs to formally provide evidence that they are the first inventor, so I am not sure what chance does M$ have to make this claim

    My 2c

    [snip URL:http://www.piperpat.co.nz/patlaw/patact.html]

    Persons entitled to make application -

    (1) An application for a patent for an invention may be made by any of the following persons, that is to say:

    (a) By any person claiming to be the true and first inventor of the invention:

    (b) By any person being the assignee of the person claiming to be the true and first inventor in respect of the right to make such an application, - and may be made by that person either alone or jointly with any other person.

    (2) Without prejudice to the foregoing provisions of this section, an application for a patent for an invention in respect of which protection has been applied for in a convention country may be made by the person by whom the application for protection was made or by the assignee of that person; and for the purposes of this Act the filing in any convention country of a complete specification after the filing of a provisional specification or provisional specifications in respect of any such application shall be deemed to be an application for protection in that country:

    Provided that no application shall be made by virtue of this subsection after the expiration of 12 months from the date of the application for protection in a convention country or, where more than one such application for protection has been made, from the date of the first application.

    [(2A) For the purposes of this section, where more than one application for protection in a convention country has been made, the first application may be disregarded and the second application shall be substituted for the first application where -

    (a) The first application was made in or in respect of the same convention country and by the same applicant as the second application; and

    (b) Not later than the date of filing of the second application, the first application was unconditionally withdrawn, abandoned or refused; and

    (i) The first application had not been made available to the public in New Zealand or elsewhere before its unconditional withdrawal, abandonment or refusal; and

    (ii) No rights remain outstanding in respect of the first application; and

    (iii) The first application has not served to establish a priority date (as defined in section 2 of this Act) in relation to another application in any country.]

    (3) An application for a patent may be made under subsection (1) or subsection (2) of this section by the personal representative or the assignee of the personal representative of any deceased person who, immediately before his death was entitled to make such an application.

    (4) An application for a patent made by virtue of subsection (2) of this section is in this Act referred to as a convention application.
    Cf. Patents Act 1949, s.1 (UK); 1921-22, # 18, ss.3, 48
    As to the meaning of the term "personal representative" in subs.(3), see s.2(2).

    [S.7(2A) was inserted by The Patents Amendment Act 1992]

    [/snip]

  5. Re:Prior art, film at eleven by mcdrewski42 · · Score: 5, Informative
    Interesting that patent application 20030237048 in the USA Patent Office lodged on Christmas Day 2003 is for a Word processor for freestyle editing of well-formed XML documents


    Abstract
    A word-processor that provides a freestyle-editing environment for editing an XML document while monitoring the XML document for well-formedness. The word processor monitors the XML document to determine if the XML document is well-formed and to automatically correct the XML document to maintain well-formedness.


    Asignee Name: Microsoft Corporation.

    I wonder if they are related at all?
    --
    /* affect != effect */ void affect(int *thing,int effect) { *thing += effect; }
  6. SGML and XML editors show years of prior art by SgtChaireBourne · · Score: 2, Informative
    Honestly, HTML is a decent precedent for XML. Sure the structure is less ordered, and not so clearly delineated between logical/structral and layout/presentation halves. But the idea of using containing tags to structure text has been around since at least SGML in 1986.
    Actually, SGML was accepted as an international standard in 1986. SGML has its origins in the 1960s, but then so does object oriented programming. GML started then and over time was modified to what became SGML which became a standard in 1986. Then concessions were made to simplify it and most importantly, IMHO, make it easier to parse by requiring documents to be "well-formed". So, editors which handle structural markup, including some web editors (e.g. Hotmetal), have actually been around since the 1960's, even if we restrict the scope to SGML/XML.

    If you want commercial, yet high quality examples, look at some of the tools from ArborText, Softquad, or even Altova. If you want something from the GNU project, then look at the PSGML mode for Emacs, which I recall using already in 1995. I'm sure I'm missing many examples from the 70's and 80's.

    To take other recent examples, the versions of HTML prior to XHTML are in SGML. SGML and XML are the rules for defining sets of rules (aka DTDs) like HTML. You have many choices:

    I expect that some TeX users could speak up as well.
    --
    Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
  7. Text of Claim1 of EU version by JPMH · · Score: 4, Informative
    It looks as though a very similar patent application has been filed in Europe, EP 1376387. Clicking on the 'Claims' button in the top line of the page reveals:
    EP1376387.
    Word-processing document stored in a single XML file
    Applicant(s): MICROSOFT CORP (US)

    Claims:

    1. A computer-readable medium having computer-executable components, comprising:

    a first component for reading a word-processor document stored as a single XML file;
    a second component that utilizes an XSD for interpreting the word-processor document, and
    a third component for performing an action on the word-processor document.

    ... and so on down to claim 31.

    This is only a patent application, not (yet) a granted patent (in fact in the EU the patent application has only just been published, on 2 Jan this year).

    From the 'priority number' (US20020187060 20020628) it looks as though the original application was for a US patent, filed some time in 2002. So that is the cut-off date for prior art.

    The full paperwork file for the EPO patent application can also be viewed, at EPOline.

  8. Did Microsoft publish prior art in MSWord 2000? by smcv · · Score: 2, Informative

    Word 2000 can "round-trip"* well-formed XML - they claim it's HTML, but it's actually something HTMLish in XML (basically XHTML with the wrong namespace), plus Office and Word extensions in their own namespaces for the word-processor-ish stuff. As far as I remember, Word 2000 HTML supports a pretty large subset of the features Word 2000 .doc files do.

    (*: i.e. not just export like Word 97 did)