Company Claims Patent Over XML

Aviran Mordo writes "News.com reports that a small software developer plans to seek royalties from companies that use XML, the latest example of patent claims embroiling the tech industry. Charlotte, N.C-based Scientigo owns two patents (No. 5,842,213 and No. 6,393,426) covering the transfer of 'data in neutral forms.' These patents, one of which was applied for in 1997, are infringed upon by the data-formatting standard XML, Scientigo executives assert."

Comments

Patenting Patents

[bldp]

Somebody should patent the patent process. Quite possibly the only way to screw it up more.

Re:Patenting Patents

[psst]

I have seen this comment posted in every article related to patent abuse. In fact, I am thinking of patenting the idea of patenting the patent process, just so it never comes up on slashdot again. Of course, at some point someone would take it even further and patent patenting my idea, and the someone else ... blah blah blah ... I think you get the idea =)

Re:Patenting Patents

[bldp]

We'll just create Godwin's rule of Patent threads.

As an online discussion about patents grows longer, the probability someone saying "I'll just patent the patent process" approaches 1.

Re:Patenting Patents

[rpresser]

What a Nazi-like thing to say!

No wonder you guys are so crazy about patents

[Anonymous Coward]

if only i could patent the first post, but another anonymous coward would probably claim prior art.

I've got a great idea:

[BrakesForElves]

That's it... I'm going to patent an "agency enabling litigous under-achievers to assert ownership rights for ideas completely obvious to the most casual observer, and exacting confiscatory license fees therefrom". Yep, I'm going to patent the U.S. Patent Office, then chage dickheads like these "patent license" fees for using _my_ patented invention: The patent office.

The response this deserves

[MillionthMonkey]

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<bite attr="me"/>

Re:SGML?

[afd8856]

On slashdot, only the anonymous coward reads the article. Us, cowboys, will head straight to the arena for a quick round of trolling and fighting.

Re:Invalid Claim

[sootman]

Sounds more like they've patented unorganized data

Dude, I've totally got prior art there. :-)

Re:Prior Art: 1960

[hobuddy]

I guess they could try to patent ugliness...

No good; there's prior art.

(ducks)

How abstract can a patent be?

[baka_boy]

From patent #5,842,213:

One skilled in the art will appreciate that preferred embodiments of the method of the present invention may take on many different forms depending on the particular application intended. In light of this, the preferred embodiment presented here has been designed primarily to teach many of the important aspects and implications of the method of the present invention in a context which can be readily learned. Once taught the method, one skilled in the art will appreciate many alternative and preferred means for implementing individual aspects of it, depending upon their specific purpose.

After re-reading that a few times, I think I've figured out that it's basically saying that this isn't an invention, it's a philosophy. This is so fscking general it could be equally validly applied to hypermedia, or frame logic, or tuple spaces, or any of the thousands of schema-less data representation models out there.

Really, the whole patent begs the following three obvious questions:

1. What was the author of this patent smoking?
2. What was the reviewer who approved it smoking?
3. Can I have some of #1 and/or #2?

Re:Looooosers.

[failure-man]

They're heds had already asploded. Its to late.