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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."

21 of 60 comments (clear)

  1. Prior art, film at eleven by dacarr · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Other word processors do XML, and have been doing it. It can probably be overturned.

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    1. 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?
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  2. prior by TheSHAD0W · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Web pages are, in essence, word-processed, and they were one of the first demonstrated uses of the XML format. They include all the features word-processed documents would require, including formatting and font information. I can't see how any judge could overlook this as prior art.

  3. Would you like prior art with that? by Anaxagor · · Score: 5, Funny

    Apparently, nobody here is diligently watching out for such ridiculous patents.

    When challenged by reporters over the volume of prior art which negates this patent, a Microsoft spokesperson replied "Apparently, everybody here is too patently ridiculous to be diligently watching out."

  4. Without the details, this story is pointless by Smack · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The title of a patent is worthless. Patents are all about the implementation, and we know nothing about what Microsoft is claiming here.

    Honestly, the story rebuts itself:

    "Without knowing what is in the patent in detail means it is somewhat difficult to provide a meaningfull objection. "

  5. How can you patent this? by a.koepke · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Quote from the Wikipedia on XML: "Its primary purpose is to facilitate the sharing of structured text".

    It was designed for the storage of structured text. A word processor creates structured text. It is sort of logical to use the technology that was designed to store what you are creating. How is that being innovative or original? If they were using some other technology for this and it was not designed for this usage then maybe they would have a case.

    This is like someone creating and image format and Adobe taking out the patent to save documents in that format. It is dumb.

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  6. Why a deadline? by Nucleon500 · · Score: 3, Insightful
    The public missed the deadline for doing the patent examiners' job, so another stupid patent will probably be granted. But why is there a deadline in the first place?

    Complaints ought to be listened to both before and after the patent is granted. If obvious (OO.org) examples (*.sx?) of prior art are found, the patent office ought to revoke the patent, even if it's already been granted. If the company (patent owners are always companies, hmm...) doesn't like it, they should have to sue.

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  7. 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.

  8. 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.

  9. What else can they do? by aufecht · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Seems to me that the only way MS can combat the wide acceptance of Linux is to make it illegal to use Linux. They realize that software superiority is something they can not achieve, so the only option they have is to leverage their monopoly power, vast hordes of cash, and dirty lawyers to insure their products reign supreme, both on the shelf and bundled with new computers. They noose is beginning to tighten. They see a serious threat that refuses to go away.

  10. Why not HTML? by digitect · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.

    Let's hope that this patent applies to a specific implementation of XML, such as the form:

    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
    <XML>
    <this>
    <blob type="patented_binary_thingy"/>
    </this>
    </XML>

    Heh.

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  11. 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.

  12. Wait a minute... by alan_dershowitz · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Isn't the point of XML that its a fucking document markup language? If this patent made any god damn sense, whats to stop people from patenting marking up ANYTHING in xml? Patents are supposed to be nonobvious, and marking up documents in XML is PRETTY DAMN OBVIOUS.

  13. 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.
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  14. Good ol' Microsoft by marcello_dl · · Score: 2, Insightful

    When they published the specs of Word documents I marveled and thought that maybe they were beginning to understand what this open IT era is all about.

    Instead, now they are going from embrace and extend to embrace and close up.

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  15. Kiwi law issues by thogard · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Does the Kiwi law allow for private prosecution aginst the New Zealand government? What would happen if a private prosecution aginst the patent office was clearly going to happen if they allow this patent to proceed seeing that it clearly isn't a new idea. I expect they will look at the issue much differently if they have to figure out where their budget is going to go. The Kiwi govt is small enough that they could not afford a law suit brought on by people from other countries and I'm guessing they would clearly change their tune. Of course they should punish Microsoft for outright lies in patent applications.

  16. Someone bult the wheel... by curious.corn · · Score: 2, Insightful

    ... and Microsoft is patenting the idea of rolling it... sigh! What is this with comp sci? Whatever naive, obvious and trivial mental association made in this field is considered insightful discovery! I'm a cheap ass sysadmin and everyone I know (except the real compsci dudes) venerates me for my quality expertise! WTF? Side note... this news can't be true; and if it were, it would violate the very principle of the Antitrust Lawsuit. How can something (XML) designed to enfranchise the IT world from proprietary undocumented formats be limited in it's applicability so that it can't be used for the very specific application it was developed for?
    Sigh...

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  17. 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.

  18. Is this even possible? by polyp2000 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I am assuming that someone somewhere already holds a patent for the XML markup language.

    The whole point of XML as i see it is to enable information interchange easily on a wide range of software platforms, packages and over the internet. Correctly formed XML not only contains data but it should also contain markup that describes how the data is stored, allowing anyone to read/write to the XML document.

    Im guessing that the person who filed the original patent for XML would have made statements towards this effect. Would this not create a conflict between the two patents?

    In any case the audacity of Microsoft never ceases to amaze me and this outrageous current application shows that we really need more techies in the right places. They cannot be allowed to continue to abuse the system in this way, taking advantage of people who know no better.

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  19. Real XML or M$ XML? by Peartree · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Does that include real XML formats like OpenOffice/StarOffice or the M$ XML format that Word uses?

  20. 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)