MS Files for Broad XML/Word-processing Patent in NZ

Unloaded writes "In the New Zealand Herald, Adam Gifford has written an article blasting Microsoft for burying the New Zealand Intellectual Property Office in paperwork. One example is Patent 525484, accepted by the office and now open for objections until the end of May, which says Microsoft invented and owns the process whereby a word-processing document stored in a single XML file may be manipulated by applications that understand XML."

Comments

salmacis

[salmacis2]

Would this be the same Microsoft that is arguing for patent reform?

Re:salmacis

[Anonymous Coward]

When the rules are there, you play by them. That's just what Microsoft is doing.

Microsoft has indicated that they want to see the rules changed, because they believe that the rules are broken. Again, as long as the rules remain unchanged, Microsoft has no choice but to play by them; it would be foolish not to.

There is nothing hyprocrital in what Microsoft is doing, so you need not use that tone.

For those of you that would like an analogy: Imagine saying "I believe that there should be no income tax." Now, while an income tax is still in place, would you spend money as if there were no income tax? Surely not. That doesn't make you a hypocrite.

Next, Image saying "I believe that the patent system is broken." Now, while the system is broken, are you going to file patents as if the rules were ideal? Surely not. That doesn't make you a hyprocite.

Re:salmacis

[Loonacy]

This is actually more of a "I believe people should not take advantage of other people." and then taking advantage of them because that's the way the world runs.

Re:salmacis

[booch]

But the current rules say that the idea must be new, and not obvious to someone skilled in the art. This patent is clearly obvious, and has been done before (KWord at the least, perhaps even programs using DocBook). Anyone skilled enough to "invent" this would/should know that it is obvious, and that it had been done before.

So Microsoft is breaking the existing rules. Now can we be mad at them?

Re:salmacis

[fade-in]

When the rules are there, you play by them. That's just what Microsoft is doing.

Blah, blah, blah. People only say stuff like this when the rules are in their favor.

Re:salmacis

[theLOUDroom]

Pattents should go through some sort of peer review process. (I'm not going to argue the details, as IANAL.) But something like what publishing takes in the scientific journal world.

I think I have a better idea:
Take away the persumption of validity from a patent. Turn the patent office in a registry of "I invented this on this date."
The first time you want to enforce you patent, you are FORCED to go to court and prove its validity. There a judge can hear aguments from experts presented by both sides, including a side that actually has a financial interest in striking down that patent. (Unlike the USPTO, who refers to patent holders are their "customers".)

Forcing a "blind" peer review wouldn't be worth nearly as much in the fight against shitty patents, since nobody involved in the process has a real interest in NOT letting the patent through, AND you would be wasting scientists time the world over reviewing useless and pointless patents. In terms of their time vs. their money, it's better for these "reviewers" to just pocket and feet they get and rubber stamp anything you give them instantly.

Oh, great.

[mrchaotica]

So basically, MIcrosoft is trying to stop OpenOffice, AbiWord, Pages, etc. from being able to import and export Word XML files. Wonderful.

At least it's not patenting those apps from reading their own format, since they aren't single files (zips and bundles, respectively).

Re:Oh, great.

[mrchaotica]

They're not evil for wanting to stop competition; they're evil because of the grossly unethical -- and sometimes genuinely illegal -- tactics they use to do it.

Re:Oh, great.

[mrchaotica]

I think that the computer science field is advancing so rapidly that everything is "trivial" (including compression and media codecs), and that even a 1 year patent would hinder the software industry more than it would help it.

Re:Oh, great.

[golgotha007]

Richard Stallman really says it best:

When CNET News.com asked Bill Gates about software patents, he shifted the subject to "intellectual property," blurring the issue with various other laws.

Then he said anyone who won't give blanket support to all these laws is a communist. Since I'm not a communist but I have criticized software patents, I got to thinking this might be aimed at me.

When someone uses the term "intellectual property," typically he's either confused himself, or trying to confuse you. The term is used to lump together copyright law, patent law and various other laws, whose requirements and effects are entirely different. Why is Mr. Gates lumping these issues together? Let's study the differences he has chosen to obscure.

Software developers are not up in arms against copyright law, because the developer of a program holds the copyright on the program; as long as the programmers wrote the code themselves, no one else has a copyright on their code. There is no danger that strangers could have a valid case of copyright infringement against them.

Patents are a different story. Software patents don't cover programs or code; they cover ideas (methods, techniques, features, algorithms, etc.). Developing a large program entails combining thousands of ideas, and even if a few of them are new, the rest needs must have come from other software the developer has seen. If each of these ideas could be patented by someone, every large program would likely infringe hundreds of patents. Developing a large program means laying oneself open to hundreds of potential lawsuits. Software patents are menaces to software developers, and to the users, who can also be sued.

A few fortunate software developers avoid most of the danger. These are the megacorporations, which typically have thousands of patents each, and cross-license with each other. This gives them an advantage over smaller rivals not in a position to do likewise. That's why it is generally the megacorporations that lobby for software patents.

Today's Microsoft is a megacorporation with thousands of patents. Microsoft said in court that the main competition for MS Windows is "Linux," meaning the free software GNU/Linux operating system. Leaked internal documents say that Microsoft aims to use software patents to stop the development of GNU/Linux.

When Mr. Gates started hyping his solution to the problem of spam, I suspected this was a plan to use patents to grab control of the Net. Sure enough, in 2004 Microsoft asked the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) to approve a mail protocol that Microsoft was trying to patent. The license policy for the protocol was designed to forbid free software entirely. No program supporting this mail protocol could be released as free software--not under the GNU GPL (General Public License), or the MPL (Mozilla Public License), or the Apache license, or either of the BSD licenses, or any other.

The IETF rejected Microsoft's protocol, but Microsoft said it would try to convince major ISPs to use it anyway. Thanks to Mr. Gates, we now know that an open Internet with protocols anyone can implement is communism; it was set up by that famous communist agent, the U.S. Department of Defense.

With Microsoft's market clout, it can impose its choice of programming system as a de-facto standard. Microsoft has already patented some .Net implementation methods, raising the concern that millions of users have been shifted to a government-issue Microsoft monopoly.

But capitalism means monopoly; at least, Gates-style capitalism does. People who think that everyone should be free to program, free to write complex software, they are communists, says Mr. Gates. But these communists have infiltrated even the Microsoft boardroom. Here's what Bill Gates told Microsoft employees in 1991:

"If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today's ideas were invented and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a comple

Re:Oh, great.

[Anonymous Coward]

The term you're looking for is "free market economy". Capitalism is something else, which, in contrast to free markets, doesn't exclude monopolies.

Re:Oh, great.

[mpe]

Call me ignorant, but why would any company NOT want to stop competition?

The alternative is to compete.

If my company saw a(n) (legal) opportunity to stop or hinder the competition, we'd grab it with both hands and do whatever we could to exploit that opportunity.

It may not even matter if it was legal or not. Often the penalties for corporate criminals are so weak that the potential profits from breaking the law excede the potential fines.
There's also the situation of corporate crooks "buying off" legislators and what (inadequate) law enforcement deals with this large area of crime.

Re:Oh, great.

[Thing 1]

Under a communist system, you (and most other people) would try to get away with working as little as possible.

Yes, and I do the same under a capitalist system. Or any other system. Why would I want to expend more effort on a task once my goals have been achieved?

The less emotional way to state the above is: "People tend to be efficient."

The point of XML

[moochfish]

Great. With this, Microsoft is making XML is their own "proprietary" format. At least in that country.

It's the stupid rules, stupid!

[ehack]

You cannot blame MS for playing according to the rules; nor can one blame the policticians for being accomodating and writing the rules to benefit such a generous contributor. Anyone here say vicious circle ?

Ah yes...

[xstonedogx]

The famous Microsoft interoperability initiative.

"We're using an open format! You just can't do anything with it unless we say so. And yeah, we're not going to say so unless you're using our product anyway, or paying us a hefty tax that our competitors, both free and otherwise, can't afford. But hey, we're interoperable!"

so...

[sonictheboom]

is this what you might call patent spam? file millions, some are bound to get through?

Re:so...

[TheOldFart]

That's what makes this so naughty. Only large corporations are able to file patents for every brain-fart they come up with. The small guy is again rear-ended by the tool created to protect him.

You certainly can!

[interactive_civilian]

ehack said:

nor can one blame the policticians for being accomodating and writing the rules to benefit such a generous contributor.

Yes, you certainly can blame the politicians here. It is not their job to accomodate generous contributors. It is their job to represent the will of the people (ALL the people, not just the wealthy contributors) that they are supposed to be governing.

This "vicious circle" could be easily broken if there were politicians that actually cared about their constituents and the welfare of their city/state/country rather than caring for the almight dollar/yen/euro/etc.

But they're _not_ playing by the rules!

[mrchaotica]

They're tricking the patent office into accepting their applications which are just outside the rules.* That patent isn't innovative, nor is it even new at all! What Microsoft is doing is like watching somebody create the automobile and then patenting sedans. It's just a subset and a particular use of an existing technology, not anything new at all!

*assuming NZ's patent rules are anything like the US's

Um... prior art...

[beelsebob]

Explain to me in what way the xhtml documents I find all over the web are not word processing documents stored in xml?

Patents

[ta bu shi da yu]

It would be nice to have some non-monetary penalties apply for frivilous patents. Like, for instance, if a patent gets rejected for being obvious then the firm doing the patenting must wait six months before filing another patent. It would do two things:

1. Teach the business that they should be more careful when it comes to patents, and
2. Frees up the patent office to do better research.

Defensive patenting

[potcrackpot]

The problem with this article is that it misses the point. Like any good troll, the author asserts facts and opinions that can't be denied, supporting what is unfortunately a skewed and unfair underpinning perspective.

Yes, the patent is a poor one - although MS did it first (I think), the idea isn't particularly great; it is an obvious idea from just reading the XML RFC.

However, a google search for "microsoft patent case" reveals page after page of results for microsoft being sued for patent infringement. None of the results, as far as I can see, pertain to Microsoft suing someone else.

A great deal of large companies have a strategy of defensive patenting: if you've got the patent, no one else can; plus, if you've got one they (an aggressor) infringe and they've got one you infringe, there's a chance that everyone will just forget all about it.

Microsoft's strategy is consistent with their talk about overhauling the patent system - the system is garbage, but they should hedge their bets and defensive patent in case it (the system) doesn't get changed.

No-one is getting screwed as much as Microsoft over patents. The author is simply picking on an easy target.

Re:XML

[symbolic]

What Microsoft is attempting to do is patent one of the uses intended for XML from the very start. One of the mandates put forth by the XML working group was that XML shall support a wide variety of applications,. Given this, I'm puzzled at how anyone at Microsoft could even consider such a move. Wait....no I'm not. Just the same, if this patent is approved, something is very, very wrong.

Nukes are bad. Let's make more (our) nukes.

[Pecisk]

This double-faced strategy is getting a little bit tired. Come on, Microsoft, you think world are gonna along with this? five more years? ten? That's a living in the monopolist wet dream's fantasy - when all this stuff will seriously halt any kind of development in IT, it will be changed, no matter what Microsoft would like to see that.

Ok, I admit, I'm little bit naive, but hey...

p.s. I know that they are already a legit industry, who earns in such predatoric way about 300-400 bilions a year. I know all that bullshit. And I wonder - how long it is before everyone will think - hey, let's not do a real job, let extract money from someone else - and no real job will be done.

Re:Sliding scale for patent filing

[fuzzybunny]

Fun idea, useless with those numbers. Companies file patents to (a) protect themselves against lawsuits ("if you sue me for patent infringement, I'm likely to have something in my archive based on which I can sue you back") and (b) make money through licensing.

The monetary gain for a company, in the case of (a) through avoided legal costs, and for (b) in actual revenues far exceeds the trivial amounts you specify.

Make the scale geometric and it starts having teeth :)

Attention: Boss

[ewe2]

This is an important opportunity to explain to your PHBs how their business (and your livelihood) is going to be circumscribed by Microsoft-only technology unless they make a move to more interoperable and less encumbered software. Compliance is going to cost mega-dollars from lawyers fees to license renewal. It's just not worth it.

This kind of greed is going to kill XML innovation just by making the mechanisms legally doubtful unless you're a corporation who can afford to waste shareholder's investments.

there is no such thing as ... Defensive patenting

[pbhj]

Perhaps you are thinking of "defensive publication"?

Patents are state licensed monopolies. A monopoly is offensive as it is used to attack others in the wallet if they try to exploit a technological innovation.

Defensive _publication_ is the firm establishment of prior art for a particular innovation to prevent another from getting a patent. Defensive publication leaves open the way for anyone to use the technology (with the proviso being that it can be established that no previous patent exists for that tech.).

The patent system can be used for defensive publication but this (usually, ie not in EU,US,UK, at least) doesn't require those presenting the matter for publication to get a patent. For example in the UK (GB patents) the submitted disclosure is made public long before a patent is granted and an applicant can just pull out at that stage if they only want a defensive publication.

There are also companies which specialise in defensive publication. Publication in journals is also used for this purpose.

FWIW.

Could be, but ...

[Craig Ringer]

I'm not entirely convinced about the defensive patent argument. I'm sure it's true for many companies, but I'm not at all inclined to believe MS is one of them.

- They've tried to actively enforce some patents - admittedly rather old and crappy patents (FAT32 anybody?), but that's still hardly a defensive move.
- It appears - I have no firsthand knowledge - that they want at least some degree of software patentability in the EU. This doesn't really fit with the purported view that the patent system is broken and they're just playing by the rules until it can be fixed.
- If they wish to focus on defense with patents, why would they not even reveal details about their patent claims on the now-defunct Sender-ID, let alone license them?

Now, they're a big company and they do a lot of things - but some of this appears comes from a very high level, the EU patent push in particular. I don't think that's consistent with someone who's just playing along until things can be fixed.

Re:Should be treated as fraud

[mpe]

I think a lot of the problems with patents would go away if applying for a patent for something that the applicant knew had been done before, or should have known was obvious to someone in that field, was treated as fraud.

From the Patent office position this would require both denying the patent and passing the application to law enforcement.
Another way of handling things would be that all future patents from the same entity are date stamped and put to the "bottom of the pile".

That is a fine, or maybe even jail time for that applicant and senior management at that company.

How about jail time for the corporate entity itself? If we are to persist with the fiction of "corporate people" they why not treat them in the same way as real people.

Correct me if I'm wrong .....

[ajs318]

..... but isn't a patent supposed to cover one specific means to an end rather than an end in itself? In which case this ought to be struck right down.

But if that's not enough, then there is plenty of evidence that this is not novel {KWord, anyone? OOWriter?}.

And if the prior art is not enough, this sort of thing should be obvious to an expert in the field. In fact, all of mathematics is obvious to a mathematician.

How obvious need obvious be? It's obvious that fire conducts electricity, even if you have never thought about it; because fire is a chemical reaction, a chemical reaction contains charged particles in motion, and charged particles in motion can carry an electrical current.

Infrastructure to watch patent offices everywhere

[synthespian]

There should be some community global effor/site to watch patent offices around the world. This was local FLOSS communities could at least put up a fight.
Better yet, a global fund.

Agatha Christie

[alsy]

The example I give when people have trouble understanding that software patents are bad is what would have happened if Agatha Christie had been able to patent the murder mystery novel.

People understand that this is ridiculous, and why only copyright is used for books.

Ditto for software

Re:Patent the idea of patenting other peoples idea

[Anonymous Coward]

The important story is that they had to fight the patent of these fuckers for ten years before their landmark victory.

Who else has that kind of time, money, or patience?

Re:Should be treated as fraud

[Software]

all future patents from the same entity are date stamped and put to the "bottom of the pile".

Putting them on the "bottom of the pile" sounds like they would still have a chance of being approved. Instead, how about suspending the company's filing privileges for a period of, say, 6 months?

I don't agree with the concept of jail time. Let the punishment fit the crime. Filing fraudulent patent applications -> filing privileges suspended.