Developers Warned over OOXML Patent Risk

Tendraes brings us a story about legal experts who are warning that Microsoft's "covenant not to sue" over use of the OOXML specification is both ambiguous and untested. Developers wishing to make use of OOXML are unlikely to understand the complex legal language of the Open Specification Promise, and such a document - being neither a release nor a contract - has never been tested in court. From ZDNet Asia: "David Vaile, executive director of the Cyberspace Law and Policy Center at the University of New South Wales, said that Microsoft participants at a recent symposium on the issue found it challenging to explain how an ordinary person 'or even an ordinary lawyer' could easily determine which parts of the specification were covered. 'This lack of certainty would mean a cautious lawyer may be reluctant to advise any third party to rely on the promise without extensive and potentially quite expensive analysis, and even that could be inconclusive,' Vaile said. 'In turn, this could restrict its viability as a usable standard for less well-resourced users, including small developers and many public organizations.'"

Comments

Cyberlaw Centre, Ron Yu

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a good read... Ron Yu's background paper on patent approaches in OOXML.

Microsoft patents around OOXML

[pieterh]

It appears that Microsoft has about 280 patents around OOXML and related technologies. It also has a large number of patents that read on ODF. We're making a list of these and hope to be able to publish them soon.

There are also several patents from third parties that read on OOXML, and in theory ISO should halt the process while these are examined and cleared. It looks like ISO won't do that.

Microsoft has several techniques to keep OOXML a captive standard controlled by a single vendor. Complexity is one. But patents are the very best technique.

Note also that OOXML's complexity is mostly because it's a dump of a legacy format. Some upcoming MS ISO proposals are very clean technically, but also very heavily patented.

It seems clear that the OSP is worthless for GPL implementations, the biggest threat to Microsoft.

At the same time it's worth noting that the format being voted on by ISO is not the format implemented by Office. There are over 2,300 changes and the two formats are not compatible. The reason for pushing for ISO standardisation is to let MS market their formats as "standard", while in fact implementing non-standard vendor-specific formats. And then, using patent threats against anyone who tries to reverse-engineer those.

It's a nice con trick. Many national bodies have realized what's going on but many are too corrupted or too ignorant to understand.