Microsoft Patents XML Word Processing Documents

theodp writes "Embrace. Extend. Patent. On Tuesday, Microsoft was granted US Patent No. 7,571,169 for its 'invention' of the Word-processing document stored in a single XML file that may be manipulated by applications that understand XML. Presumably developers are protected by Microsoft's 'covenant not to sue,' so the biggest question raised by this patent is: How in the world was it granted in light of the 40-year history of document markup languages? Next thing you know, the USPTO will give Microsoft a patent for Providing Emergency Data in XML format. Oops, too late."

Comments

Won't hold up

[clang_jangle]

This won't hold up if challenged, there is plenty of prior art.

Re:Won't hold up

[Delwin]

So why was it granted in the first place?

Re:Won't hold up

[BSAtHome]

But it still costs a fortune to get it challenged. That is the real problem. It is an armsrace and the one with the biggest pocket wins. I wonder when this cold war bubble will burst.

Re:Won't hold up

[Anonymous Coward]

I think Adobe has prior art and, I'm willing to be corrected upon this, they're one of the few companies MS is wary of pissing off.

Re:Won't hold up

[_KiTA_]

So why was it granted in the first place?

Because the Patent Office doesn't have enough computer geeks and is underfunded.

Re:Won't hold up

[quickOnTheUptake]

For one, isn't ODF, which IIRC is covered by multiple published standards, exactly such a system as MS is now getting a patent for?

Re:Won't hold up

[Anonymous Coward]

I think Adobe has prior art and, I'm willing to be corrected upon this, they're one of the few companies MS is wary of pissing off.

Correct about MS pissing them off. All Adobe needs to do in the event of MS making them mad is to change Flash/PDF just enough that they don't work with old versions, and then refuse to port/support a Windows version. As the developers / authors gradually move to the new standards, Windows gets further and further behind, and all they have is Silverlight and .doc files. That is not where MS wants to be.

Re:Won't hold up

[Anonymous Coward]

Once a few years ago, say 2007 or so, MS threatened to announce a replacement cross platform doc that would supplant PDF.

Adobe released a statement in response to a planted question on CNet or something, that there was 'no reason why they couldn't release Flash-based competitor to PowerPoint,' and suddenly MS's latest initiative magically went away.

Re:Won't hold up

[mysidia]

No, ODF is a XML-based document format. An actual system would be a word processor application that utilizes the ODF file format, for example OpenOffice today.

The filing date shown on the patent is Jun 2002.

The ODF format was first discussed in December 2002, and finalized in May of 2005.

So it would seem Microsoft's patent comes before ODF.

Re:Won't hold up

[Desler]

All Adobe needs to do in the event of MS making them mad is to change Flash/PDF just enough that they don't work with old versions, and then refuse to port/support a Windows version.

Why would they do something that stupid? That would destroy 90% of their install base and thus ruin themselves.

As the developers / authors gradually move to the new standards, Windows gets further and further behind, and all they have is Silverlight and .doc files. That is not where MS wants to be.

No, if Adobe stopped supporting Windows, those developers would just drop it and thus Adobe would go bankrupt.

Re:Won't hold up

[boarder8925]

This won't hold up if challenged, there is plenty of prior art.

I was gonna make a remark about the filing date, but seeing that it's 6 December 2004, there's still plenty of prior art.

Re:Won't hold up

[FourthAge]

This.

It seems the "stupid patent formula" has been updated. It used to be "$X, but on the Internet". As in, "I've reinvented the wheel! But this time, it's connected to the Internet!"

The new "stupid patent formula" seems to be "$X, but using XML". As in, "I've invented fire! But this time, it uses eXtensible Markup Language!"

Since XML was the solution to all possible problems about ten years ago, we can probably guess at where the "stupid patent formula" will be in a decade's time. No doubt it will involve something like "$X, but using Javascript on a Web 2.0 social networking site that's accessed using a smartphone with a touch screen".

Re:Won't hold up

[Desler]

No the filing date is Jun 2002. Which means you'd have to find prior art dating before Jun 2001.

Re:Won't hold up

[Brian Gordon]

It's actually pretty hard to uphold any patent against that kind of argument. "I invented the wheel, but this time it uses spokes and cotton!"

Re:Won't hold up

[cmacb]

Have you ever heard the saying: "good enough for government work"?

Re:Won't hold up

[MightyMartian]

But not before SGML. The whole thing is a pile of shit, a worthless patent predated by at least a quarter century (and probably a bit longer) of markup languages. The US patent system is fucking broken, because if it worked, Microsoft would have been sent packing.

Re:Won't hold up

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

It will never burst. We have seen scandal after scandal involving patents granted by the USPTO. Companies big and small have all been hit, hard, by patent trolls and anti-competitive litigation. We've seen products sunk and industries mired in doubt. We've seen farcical patents and US supreme court case. If there was an event that could have burst this bubble, it would have happened by now.

The USPTO is not going to stop granting these things. Industry is never going to become so irritated by the cons of the patent system that they give up the pros. Ordinary people are never going to let go of the illusion that one genius invention, with patent protection, will set them up for life. This system is deeplying ingrained, self sufficient and self perpetuating.

The patent system is not going to reform itself. Industry will not reform it. The public will not reform it. The legal system will not reform it. Patent holders will not reform it. Reform must come from an external source, powerful enough to completely reform the system. And so deeply rooted is the current regime that reform will be a very, very painful process. Frankly, I doubt modern America, along with many western nations, has the capacity to implement such a change, given its inability to reach national consensus on anything.

So, don't expect a great event that's going to topple the whole patent system. There's not going to be a some kind of Watergate or Pearl Harbour to shake the system to its foundations. Until reform comes alone, the patent system is going to continue in its current vein, come what may. And it will probably do so for a very, very long time.

Re:Won't hold up

[Man On Pink Corner]

Why would they do something that stupid?

Remember, we're talking about Adobe here, whose idea of innovation is a version of Acrobat Reader that ships on 2 DVDs instead of just 1.

Re:Won't hold up

[Anonymous Coward]

No the filing date is Jun 2002. Which means you'd have to find prior art dating before Jun 2001.

Start with LEXX (IBM research paper in 1987), an interactive editor that supported and displayed SGML (among other languages). The LEXX paper references JANUS (papers in 1981 and 1982), and an ACM survey paper from 1971.

Re:Won't hold up

[blackraven14250]

It's probably because they can easily develop competing products to Microsoft's very easily fiven their talent and fund availability.

Re:Won't hold up

[NotQuiteReal]

I wonder when this cold war bubble will burst

17 years from now (or whatever the patent time is now).

Re:Won't hold up

[Hurricane78]

No. The real problem is, that it was granted in the first place. And the real reason is, that the patent offices works under the control of a government, that has more revolving doors and "lobbys"* than the Internet Explorer has quirks, holes and bugs.

___
* Which suddenly became the word for an euphemistic view on the illegal bribery and disloyalty to the people, which in many countries are major crimes on the punishment level of murder.

Re:Won't hold up

[mysidia]

I'll agree with that.

However, was there ever a general-purpose Wordprocessor (that worked like Word, Wordperfect, OOo, etc) and that used SGML or another text-based markup language as its storage backend?

Re:Won't hold up

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you ever heard the saying, "Microsoft is not a software company, it is an abuse company that uses software as a method of delivering abuse"?

Re:Won't hold up

[Mad Merlin]

OpenOffice (and likely StarOffice before it) has used XML files to store documents in from the beginning, which goes well back into the 90s. ODF was basically just a new, formalized, schema for OpenOffice, unlike MS Office which has done memory dumps as save files since the beginning of time (and largely still does, but with a few extra <s and >s thrown in for flavour.

Re:Won't hold up

[marcansoft]

Samna/Lotus Ami Pro used a text-based markup language for documents. It predated Word for Windows (aka Microsoft Word).

Re:Won't hold up

[marcansoft]

ODF descended from the older OpenOffice/StarOffice file format ("OpenOffice.org XML"), which was already XML-based (it's very similar to ODF).

OpenOffice 1.0 used that format. It was released on May 1, 2002. Boom, obvious prior art.

Re:Won't hold up

[ZombieRoboNinja]

>I wonder when this cold war bubble will burst.

All I know is, when it does hit that bullseye, all the dominoes will fall like a house of cards: checkmate!

Re:Won't hold up

[cetialphav]

This won't hold up if challenged, there is plenty of prior art.

I agree that it probably won't be upheld if challenged, but I don't think prior art will be the issue. I just looked at the references of the patent and it looks like it refers to a ton of what I would consider prior art (lots of AbiWord references for example). It would appear that the patent office saw this and concluded that this was different. Convincing a judge or jury that the patent office was wrong would be difficult.

Personally, I don't think this patent would meet the requirements of the recent Bilski decision. This patent is just a way of storing data in a format that is specifically designed to store data. If that is a legit patent, then we will have an arms race where everyone tries to think of anything that could be stored in XML and try to get a patent before anyone thinks of it. (Phone books, recipes, code, test cases, GUI layouts, packet captures, code reviews, etc, etc).

Re:Won't hold up

[iYk6]

The thing is, spokes and cotton can't be used for everything. XML can store any type of data at all. Storing $x in XML is not creative or innovative, it is exactly what XML was designed to do.

Re:Won't hold up

[mysidia]

Can you possibly point to a publication in the form of a general article or item of documentation made prior to the date that describes OOo/StarOffice's use of an XML-based file format or make some suggestion as to where a publication might be found? (And the date of publication needs to be verifiable)

It could be extremely useful to anyone trying to fight/defeat MS' patent.

Prior art should provide a description sufficient to inform an average worker in the field and in fixed form, available to the general public.

As such, the Patent Office, or courts of law, very likely would not consider the release of OpenOffice or StarOffice themselves to be prior art, if their use of a XML-based document format hadn't been described sufficiently to the general public, in a manner the average worker would understand.

Source code, or a released software product aren't generally prior art, unless the details of the technology they use has actually been published, is the thing.

Re:Won't hold up

[greenbird]

This won't hold up if challenged, there is plenty of prior art.

And what the hell difference does that make. They'll sue and the defendant will either have to settle or go out of business because:

A. There'll be an injunction against their product so they can't sell it.

B. Because it'll be made clear that the court battle will cost them loads more than fighting (Microsoft has billions for lawyers).

C. Microsoft will make the license terms so outrageous they have to fight and then Microsoft will break them with the legal battle.

D. They'll lose the court case because they are violating the patent even though it never should have been issued..

So far courts have assumed the validity of patents even when a preliminary review has found them invalid. It takes years at best to get a final invalidation of a patent and that can be extended by appeals and modifications of the claims and other legal tactics. By then any company that was fighting would be out of business for one or more of the above reasons.

Re:Won't hold up

[greenbird]

Framemaker

We were using there markup language to create documents back the the early 90's. Not sure when they started.

Re:Won't hold up

[dieth]

Any of the old school HTML editors.

• Hotdog
• HoTMetaL
• Netscape Composer

Re:Won't hold up

[tenco]

Adobe? What about Amaya's XML/XHTML editing feature?

Re:Won't hold up

[Anonymous Coward]

So maybe we should invalidate ALL patents and be done with it. All they do is make billions for sharks^H^H^H^H^H^H lawyers...

Re:Won't hold up

[Anonymous Coward]

As I understand it they are at least partly funded by the fees. They only collect fees on the ones they pass. They would be stupid to reject any application. Just collect the money and let the courts sort out the mess.

Re:Won't hold up

[wampus]

You mean XPS?

Re:Won't hold up

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure it will be different when they're in charge of health care.

Re:Won't hold up

[WinterSolstice]

There is so much prior art for this, it's just sick. ODF, for one thing.

Heck, I even wrote an XML based text editor back when I was learning Java in 2001 or so.
All I can say is maybe I should file a patent for "Patenting inventions currently covered by patents"

Re:Won't hold up

[marcansoft]

How about something like this?
http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2001/02/07/openoffice.html

Dated February 07, 2001. States that OpenOffice (its first release as open source) already uses the format and goes on to explain some of the XML used.

Re:Won't hold up

[NekoYasha]

LyX is a graphical "document processor" that uses LaTeX as its file format, supposedly first released in 1999.

RTF also uses text-based markup.

Re:Won't hold up

[jd2112]

There's not going to be a some kind of Watergate or Pearl Harbour to shake the system to its foundations.

If someone patents regular expressions would it be like an IP Perl Harbor?

Re:Won't hold up

[Nekomusume]

I think it's been pretty much established that the patent office will grant a patent for just about anything you throw at them. They prefer to let the courts do the hard work.

Re:Won't hold up

[Anonymous Coward]

Framemaker was created as a cheaper alternative to interleaf in the mid 80's. The following site has a version timeline.

http://www.daube.ch/docu/fmhist00.html#Timeline%20of%20FrameMaker

Re:Won't hold up

[Anonymous Coward]

So why was it granted in the first place?

Because USPTO is the Mecca of the incompetence......

Re:Won't hold up

[ProfBooty]

Re-exams aren't that expensive. i have wondered why companies in litigation don't file them more often. Anybody can file a re-exam if they have prior art which raises substantial patent ability concerns and a check for $2500 or $8800.

A group of concerned citizens could easily donate enough money to pay such a fee.

Re:Won't hold up

[mysidia]

Yes, that would appear to be some very good prior art.. I just wish the patent examiners would have gotten ahold of a few documents like that one, before rubber-stamping M$'s patent app.

Re:Won't hold up

[OldSoldier]

The patent system is not going to reform itself. Industry will not reform it. The public will not reform it. The legal system will not reform it.

I only partially agree with this. The "reform" that we're looking for can simply come if the PTO admits what it is doing. A very cursory glance at prior art and other patentability issues and then granting a patent. If the PTO was honest with itself that it is relying on the legal system to help it flush out the prior art claim then they should also FOSTER the ability of John Q Citizen to bring such a claim.

In envision a cheap prior art challenge (cheaper than a full court case) perhaps filling out a few standard forms the PTO could concoct and then let that run.

Alternatively, maybe the EFF can step up to this too?

Re:Won't hold up

[Korin43]

And why don't companies have to pay a fine when they get caught?

Re:Won't hold up

[Hal_Porter]

One of the things I like about Windows is that when I press Backspace it always works, I don't need to remember stty erase ^H.

Re:Won't hold up

[hannson]

XML can store any type of data at all.

So... XML is like physics?

Re:Won't hold up

[cbiltcliffe]

AbiWord uses an XML based format, and it was mature enough to win awards in 1999, 2000, and 2001.

Re:Won't hold up

[Planesdragon]

Heck, I even wrote an XML based text editor back when I was learning Java in 2001 or so.

Go read the patent. Go!

The darn thing isn't for a pseudo-WYSIWYG XML editor. It's for a specific bundle of features that let you save your non-XML based word processing file as one single XML file, which includes bookmarks, styles, and "formatting hints" as well.

Making your word processor save to XHTML, or a randomly selected XML dialect? Obvious. The specific way you do that, and include some conventions for features that XML really wasn't meant to support? Non-obivous, and therefore patentable.

Also not all that broad.

And, of course,, the real nice thing: this patent only applies if you through a lot of formatting crap into your XML file as well... and I certainly don't remember anyone dumb enough to do that before Microsoft.

Re:Won't hold up

[Anonymous Coward]

Because anyone that would work at the patent office isn't "Practiced in the Art".

If they were, they would have real jobs that were actually creating things.. but you get what you pay for.. ....

Re:Won't hold up

[Planesdragon]

But not before SGML. ... (bullshit redacted)

Oh, for the love of sanity and rational discussion... (I know, this is /., but still!)

MS's patent doesn't cover "using XML to save data from your word processor." It covers a fairly specific bundle of things that they used XML for -- "style hints", "bookmarks", et al. In fact, it's all the crap MS has put into "SGML" files since fracking Office 95.

Oh, and it's NOT ODF -- ODF is a collection of seperate ZIP files. This patent is for a single XML file.

Re:Won't hold up

[MightyMartian]

Fine, then style sheets pretty much covers that, and that too dates back a loooong ways. Just because you come up with a novel style sheet syntax hardly makes it patentable. If I change the braces in C to the Pi symbol, does that mean I get to patent my brand new language?

Re:Won't hold up

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you for writing that. It's really nice to read something written well enough that I'd enjoy reading it whether I am interested in the subject, or not. I am this time.

Re:Won't hold up

[Vozmozno]

Oh my god, Samna... That takes me back...

Re:Won't hold up

[camperdave]

The patent office became superfluous the moment they issued the patent for swinging sideways.

Re:Won't hold up

[buchner.johannes]

Software patent problems would go away if
  (a) you would be doing like the EU: don't have any, or
  (b) pay patent office personal significantly more if they can reject a application with prior art, or/and
  (c) software patents would last 5 years max [my least favorite]

(b) is the easiest to implement, just pass a law!

Re:Won't hold up

[Anonymous Coward]

These days a lot of software patents seem to be more of an investment tool than about innovation. You invest the fee of the patent and the guys hired to put together the patent (especially the lawyers) and you sit on it like any sort of security you expect to appreciate in value. If you are a larger company then you take on smaller companies and play chicken with them knowing that a large percentage of them will fold and apply payment until a larger company actually calls your bluff or government intervention invalidates your patent. Sometimes the patent just stands and it is a steady stream of cashflow. If you are a smaller company you either get some more investors (sometimes a large anonymous corporate backer) to pool in money so you can have the same pull as a larger corporation and pull the same formula. The fact is, business litigation is less about who is technically right, and more about who can keep the arms race going the longest.

With that being said it is fortunate that many Linux system providers (Red Hat, Canonical, etc) are very fortunate that they have friends in high places like IBM to check Microsoft and others who may potential litigate against patents Linux may infringe upon. Wow this sounds like a goddamn poker game doesn't it?

Re:Won't hold up

[Undead Waffle]

Heck, I even wrote an XML based text editor back when I was learning Java in 2001 or so.

Go read the patent. Go!

The darn thing isn't for a pseudo-WYSIWYG XML editor. It's for a specific bundle of features that let you save your non-XML based word processing file as one single XML file, which includes bookmarks, styles, and "formatting hints" as well.

According to the abstract "Hints may be provided within the XML associated files" - so the "hints" are in the XSD (or other unspecified file, likely not released to other people trying to implement the format), not the XML file. It would be interesting to see what they mean by "hint". When I'm writing software I prefer to give it explicit instructions, but that's just me.

Making your word processor save to XHTML, or a randomly selected XML dialect? Obvious. The specific way you do that, and include some conventions for features that XML really wasn't meant to support? Non-obivous, and therefore patentable.

Also not all that broad.

And, of course,, the real nice thing: this patent only applies if you through a lot of formatting crap into your XML file as well... and I certainly don't remember anyone dumb enough to do that before Microsoft.

You mean formatting crap like the font tag? Or classes which refer to CSS formatting? Hell HTML was basically designed to describe formatting and XML is just a variation of the same concept. And I don't see how you can say XML wasn't meant to support Microsoft's features considering it was specifically designed to be extensible and thus support any application. They are basically trying to patent their tags and tag definitions. This is a specific implementation of XML - they might as well have stuck with binary if they didn't want anyone using their precious tags.

Re:Won't hold up

[c-reus]

So, in principle, they patented writing a lot of extra XML attributes to an XML file, be it bookmarks, formatting hints or whatever. I still don't see how this is any different from WinterSolstice's XML editor.

Re:Won't hold up

[Anonymous Coward]

If anyone on here actually bothered to read the patent they would see they are not patenting XML Documents. They are patenting a specific implementation and XSD format for multi application XML Documents. SGML nor open office would qualify as prior art as that is NOT what the patent is about.

Re:Won't hold up

[MaskedSlacker]

I really should learn to not copy and run bash commands from people's sigs. It's like russian roulette, but you can keep playing even if you lose.

Re:Won't hold up

[Anonymous Coward]

So you want to give these morons more money?

Re:Won't hold up

[amorsen]

Nope, but if you invent a way to store a whole C program in an XML file, along with a way to compile and edit the thing, you might have it.

Hopefully there's no prior art for that (until this moment).

Re:Won't hold up

[Bert64]

That's stupid, they should collect fees from the ones they reject too... And perhaps charge more when a single entity files multiple patents.
Maybe then they would be less over worked, and companies would have some incentive not to file every trivial thing in the hope of it sticking.

I mean, to a company now the choice is between "patent rejected, pay nothing" and "patent approved, pay for it", its a zero risk game that can result in significant benefits.

Re:Won't hold up

[HiThere]

But if they sue you, you'll go broke defending yourself, and then they'll win a default judgment against you because you didn't show up in the new venue that you were notified about yesterday.

Re:Won't hold up

[Anonymous Coward]

Abiword is actually cited as a reference in the patent, so presumably was deemed not to be sufficient prior art to prevent the patent.

Re:Won't hold up

[dna_(c)(tm)(r)]

So, don't expect a great event that's going to topple the whole patent system. There's not going to be a some kind of Watergate or Pearl Harbour to shake the system to its foundations. Until reform comes alone, the patent system is going to continue in its current vein, come what may. And it will probably do so for a very, very long time.

So, you aren't expecting the unexpected? I didn't see that coming!

Re:Won't hold up

[dna_(c)(tm)(r)]

The filing date shown on the patent is Jun 2002.

No, the filing date is December 6, 2004 - the date you mention is in the list of 'related patents'

Re:Won't hold up

[secondhand_Buddah]

Out of interest, I was technology evaluation on a beta version of MS Word in 1998 or 1999, for our company, that had a pure XML document format already which I was pretty exited about.

Re:Won't hold up

[TimothyDavis]

I am personally glad that Microsoft secured the patent. It would be a huge nightmare for Microsoft to enforce this patent - but it does prevent some random ass company from surfacing and extorting Microsoft (or anyone else) for the IP covered by this patent.

This is actually a good way for Microsoft to keep the patent trolls at bay.

Yes, I work for Microsoft. No, I don't think Microsoft is completely altruistic.

Re:Won't hold up

[Canazza]

So they've patented a very specific DTD?

go go Microsoft... that's what you get for spending all your money buying new chairs instead of hiring talented people

Re:Won't hold up

[bickerdyke]

Thats sooo 2007!!

I do $Z, but wireless!

Re:Won't hold up

[IBBoard]

Not only that, but check the first two "other references" in the patent:

Ayers, Larry, "AbiWord's Potential", Linux Gazette, Issue 43, Jul. 1999, pp. 1-4. cited by examiner .
"XML Schema for AbiWord Markup Language", downloaded from http://www.abisource.com/awml.xsd, May 27, 2000, pp. 1-3. cited by examiner .

They specifically reference an article on AbiWord and AbiWord's XML schema! And it's cited by the examiner, so surely that means they found the prior art and said "this is relevant". Did they get confused by it having "Word" in the app name and assume it was an MS product?

Re:Won't hold up

[hoskeri]

It's like russian roulette, but you can keep playing even if you lose.

Not on that computer, you can't

Re:Won't hold up

[AliasMarlowe]

Samna/Lotus Ami Pro used a text-based markup language for documents. It predated Word for Windows (aka Microsoft Word).

How about Ventura Publisher 1.0 which worked on a PC-XT in the mid 1980s, or v1.1 which needed a PC-AT with 1MB RAM in the late 1980s? Ventura was bought and destroyed by Corel in the 1990s (they had a remarkable skill for ruining products).
Ventura Publisher ran in DOS with the GEM GUI, and was full WYSIWYG handling long documents with graphics, equations, tables, and so forth. The document was entirely in text files and used text markup to specify formatting of text, specify which graphic files to use and how to position them. The style definitions were themselves in text, the page layout was defined using text, and so on. When a small change was needed in a hurry, I often used a text editor to make style changes, text modifications, or switch a graphic file (since firing up Ventura on an XT and loading a 400-page publication could take a while). Ventura, however, did not bundle everything into one file, but sensibly kept style and layout definitions separate from document content.

Re:Won't hold up

[Velska1]

So is M$ Word file format documented for the general public now?

Re:Won't hold up

[Big Hairy Ian]

Because they've only ever had one patent clerk with a positive IQ luckily for the world of physics he quit

Re:Won't hold up

[TheP4st]

[ $[ $RANDOM % 6 ] == 0 ] && rm -rf / || echo *Click*

Re:Won't hold up

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope that this time its about "I've invented BLOB, this time in XML" and oh, the claim includes "for backward compatibility".
That way everybody would benefit from such patent.
I for one, welcome patented BLOB in XML overlord.

Re:Won't hold up

[L4t3r4lu5]

I'm currently patenting a "method for storing graphical data of single or multiple close-proximity persons engaged in or about to engage in or have just engaged in acts of a nature which may appear or are lewd and / or unhygenic."

I'm going to make BILLIONS!

Re:Won't hold up

[oreaq]

DCF has been a SGML-based general purpose wordprocessor format for at least 30 years. Multiple general purpose wordprocessors that use DCF exist on the mainframe.

Re:Won't hold up

[Opportunist]

It's the same Malibu Stacy but with a stupid new hat.

You're dead on with the stupid patent formula. It can be broken down to "$x again, but with $y", and that's going to work forever.

Today it is XML, tomorrow it is smart phones, next will probably be a combination of it. Kinda like "$1, but making content on smartphones in XML".

Re:Won't hold up

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this the correct place to point out that, technically, the EU *has* software patents, whereas the US, in a strict sense, *does not*?

Re:Won't hold up

[sgt scrub]

Or the Patent process involves "gifts".

Re:Won't hold up

[Anonymous Coward]

Whoosh!

Re:Won't hold up

[SL Baur]

If someone patents regular expressions would it be like an IP Perl Harbor?

There must have been a reason why Bell Labs didn't patent them. The setuid bit was patented. They documented it in the back of the Version 7 Green Book in the early 1980s.

Re:Won't hold up

[Serious Callers Only]

The darn thing isn't for a pseudo-WYSIWYG XML editor. It's for a specific bundle of features that let you save your non-XML based word processing file as one single XML file, which includes bookmarks, styles, and "formatting hints" as well.

See XHTML, first drafted circa 1998, and SGML way before that. This is so obvious it hurts.

Software patents are fundamentally broken - patents were intended for mechanical designs, and that's where they should have stayed - to protect small inventors from predatory larger companies who could manufacture their design without paying them.

When applied to the world of ideas (software) patents perform the opposite function - to protect large conglomerates from startups and competition. In addition, the current system allowing any idea to be patented leads to so many frivolous applications that the patent office is simply swamped, and effectively non-functional.

Is that the desired effect of the system? It is certainly the observed effect. Copyright should be enough for software.

Re:Won't hold up

[SL Baur]

If I change the braces in C to the Pi symbol, does that mean I get to patent my brand new language?

Only if it doesn't involve trigraphs.

Re:Won't hold up

[rtb61]

A lot of lobbyists are lawyers, a lot of politicians are lawyers, the current system had been made to push every challenge into court with accompanying major court costs. Honestly how likely do you think major patent reform is.

Re:Won't hold up

[Anonymous Coward]

Hush hush information on the underground says Adobe is planning on being Mac exclusive.

Spread the word, the revolution is starting.

Re:Won't hold up

[Anonymous Coward]

I personally wrote a word processor that stored documents as XML (IBM's GML) in the 1980s.
If push comes to shove, I can prove it. (I published a paper about it)

Re:Won't hold up

[mea37]

Did you read the patent, or are you trusting TFS when it says that "markup languages" are prior art for this patent? Because that'a a bit like saying that a new type of metal fastener can't be patented due to all the prior art in making things out of metal.

IMO the patent has problems, but off hand I can't think of actual prior art for this patent - a word processor using a single XML document to represent all of its features, which must include a certain (albeit not terribly impressive) list of features, represented in particular ways, with some sort of "hinting" mechanism (though I really don't see where they're going with that) for other apps using the format...

The two problems I see are: (1) I don't see anything non-obvious about the way they're mapping word processing features to XML tags, and (2) after reading the patent, I don't know that I have enough information to produce an embodiment of the invention, which given the purpose of patents should be an issue.

Re:Won't hold up

[Civil_Disobedient]

Because the patent system in the United States is completely, inexorably fucked.

Re:Won't hold up

[Ilgaz]

Big Blue has that money for sure.

For some weird reason, I was reading SGML documentation and as you probably know, it is a ISO standard. Of course, it roots back to IBM as GML which was designed in 1960s (and actually used).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Generalized_Markup_Language

Does MS really know who they declare war to by applying for such patent or they have really disconnected from real World?

Re:Won't hold up

[WinterSolstice]

That's pretty cool - that would have been fairly forward thinking of them.
I wonder if it just took this long to patent?

Re:Won't hold up

[WinterSolstice]

Mine was basically a simplistic attempt to do something like RTF with XML, so yes - there were some stylistic hints. Just the usual stuff, and it was fairly simplistic.
You know, italic, bold, size, specific fonts.

Stuff that is really just part of CSS/HTML formatting.

Now, they do specify a few elements I didn't have (like proofing, bookmarking, etc) but really. Is that innovation? There has to be someone who did this already, and with far more elegance than some simplistic XML editor.

Re:Won't hold up

[Divebus]

This patent is for Microsoft to sue anyone who opens their proprietary digital glop with something other than Word without a license.

Re:Won't hold up

[Svartalf]

Actually, they will once in re Bilski gets decided on appeals- and it's likely to be very upheld at the SCOTUS level. If so, the USPTO has to reject on the grounds that most of these don't meet patentability criteria out of the gate.

Re:Won't hold up

[Svartalf]

The US Patent Office examiner staff isn't very good at times- they'll reject things using things they "found" that they thought were relevant and were completely off in left field. It's very arbitrary. I should know, I've filed a couple applications in the past and the back-and-forth that ends up happening more often than not is entertaining.

For example: Mention "RPC" as part of a system hardware description to close off an avenue and then the examiner will, just as likely as not, try to run things up the flagpole that use RPC as prior art exclusions- even though there was absolutely nothing in the exceptions they quoted that would anticipate what was being claimed in the application (and I'm not just saying this, the attorney agreed with it once we did an analysis of what he tried to claim on the initial rejection...). All they were was things that used RPC for their communication method.

It all depends on how much you're willing to spend and if you're lucky enough to find an examiner that's willing to do little more than a cursory examination and isn't capricious and trying to randomly reject an application.

Re:Won't hold up

[Dr.Dubious DDQ]

"software patents would last 5 years max [my least favorite]"

I'd like to see this kind of thing for ALL patents - but the duration would be negotiable.

Basically, what the patent office is doing for us (citizens of the country the patent office in question works for) is buying "trade secrets" and making them available to us. The duration of the monopoly control of the idea is the currency we use to make the purchase. Since obviously not all patents are equally valuable to us, the duration of any patent granted should be variable. "Gosh, using XML to store Word documents? I'll give you 3 months for that." "Sure-fire cure for all cancers, and you have proof? I'll give you 50 years for that one."

This "17-20 years no matter the context or value to the public" is just plain government waste.

Re:Won't hold up

[Anonymous Coward]

Weird the way I heard it was different than the AC you are replying to. I heard that MS wanted to ship a PDF printer with Office but they initially were slapped with a lawsuit and created XPS as a means to do 'the same' thing while it got settled. Now the PDF printer is a download option from their website. I could of just heard it wrong but yar.

Re:Won't hold up

[Anonymous Coward]

Text-based is one thing, XML although text is another. There is no rule that states that you cannot take an existing idea, improve it, and patent the outcome. In fact, there are rules expressly allowing it.

Where prior art kicks in, is if something that does exactl what it being patented previously existed. Text-based markup storage isn't enough to qualify as prior art for a patent regarding XML specifically.

Re:Won't hold up

[Anonymous Custard]

Shouldn't that result in fewer patent approvals? It's not like patents just approve themselves.

Re:Won't hold up

[Anonymous Coward]

So why was it granted in the first place?

Because the Patent Office doesn't have enough computer geeks and is underfunded.

Nonsense! Everyone Knows that Government exists only to Steal Our Money and that all government offices are overstaffed hives of useless drones.

Ron Paul 2012!

Re:Won't hold up

[Anonymous Coward]

Shouldn't that result in fewer patent approvals? It's not like patents just approve themselves.

By law, a patent application is presumed valid, so if an examiner does not have enough time to examine well it would result in less denials...which equates to more "approvals."

Re:Won't hold up

[Anonymous Coward]

> "It would appear that the patent office saw this and concluded that this was different."

Actually, it appears that the patent clerk had time to catch his breath from his fun night of top-quality cocaine and blowjobs from the top five supermodels to say, "Alright Mr. Microsoft Executive, you go get that evil open source and shoot it down!" stamp: [APPROVED] [APPROVED] [APPROVED] [APPROVED]

Re:Won't hold up

[OldSoldier]

A lot of lobbyists are lawyers, a lot of politicians are lawyers, the current system had been made to push every challenge into court with accompanying major court costs. Honestly how likely do you think major patent reform is.

When the patent office complains then I think the chances are higher than you apparently do. Not great mind you, but not abysmal either.

Re:Won't hold up

[doodlebumm]

Wow! Gates and Balmer as Dominatrices getting billions of dollars from the masses for inflicting pain. Didn't everyone realize that if they weren't getting pleasure from the pain that they were wasting their money? Ohhh, the horror that has been wrought in my brain of the mental picture of that pair in latex and thigh-high stiletto boots!!! Too bad I can't un-imagine it!! Quick! Someone kill me!

Re:Won't hold up

[Richard Steiner]

I remember using DCF in a previous position for technical documents in a TS environment, and I remember it using various dot codes (e.g., .PG, etc.) for formatting, pagination, etc. It wasn't too bad to work with. :-)

I also remember using AppleWorks on an Apple II in the early 80's and using similar text-based markup.

Re:Won't hold up

[florescent_beige]

I don't get it. It just prints out *Click* over and ov

Re:Won't hold up

[Tetsujin]

[ $[ $RANDOM % 6 ] == 0 ] && rm -rf / || echo *Click*

Don't forget to factor in that you spin the chamber once at the beginning of the game... The probability (of course the position of the bullet is certain - so in a sense there's a 100% chance of a certain shot being lethal and a 0% chance of the others being lethat - but in absence of knowledge of which chamber has a bullet we think of it as a probability) of getting the bullet changes with each shot:

first shot: 1/6 chance
second shot: 1/5 chance
third shot: 1/4 chance
fourth shot: 1/3 chance
fifth shot: 1/2 chance
sixth shot: if the game goes this far, then everybody already knows where the bullet is...

Basically the flaw in your script is that one could conceivably run it six times and not get the "bullet" - or run it more than once and get the "bullet" more than once (at least, if the shell is busybox or something, preventing the removal of /bin/rm and /bin/echo from being an issue...)

Re:Won't hold up

[gerddie]

go go Microsoft... that's what you get for spending all your money buying new chairs ...

Don't underestimate the value of a good chair, your back will thank you.

Re:Won't hold up

[Alef]

I mean, to a company now the choice is between "patent rejected, pay nothing" and "patent approved, pay for it", its a zero risk game that can result in significant benefits.

More like "patent rejected, $20k wasted". The cost of a patent application for a typical company is usually many times higher than the fee you pay to the patent office. Patent applications are complex legal documents, and patent attorney fees are usually a substantial portion of the total cost. You will also need to have your technical specialists to spend time consulting the attorneys. And you may need to perform a preliminary patent search, which means even more expensive hours spent.

Re:Won't hold up

[TheTurtlesMoves]

because it takes years and does not stop current litigation.

Re:Won't hold up

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Or like lambda calculus. :)

Re:Won't hold up

[mftb]

145 [root@mbpftb] # *Click*

Re:Won't hold up

[MarkKB]

You mean XPS, the document format that powers Windows Vista/7's printing process and, incidentally enough, Microsoft added a viewer to in Windows 7? The one that Microsoft requires all printers to support in order to get the Compatible with Windows logo? The one that has an "Export to XPS" function in Office (while you couldn't do the same for PDF, IIRC, unless you installed an addon)? The one that just became an EMCA open standard (on June 19)?

Yeah, it sure disappeared fast...

Re:Won't hold up

[shentino]

Except that I would consider microsoft the ultimate patent troll of all.

Tom tom anyone?

Re:Won't hold up

[Anonymous Coward]

Crap into your XML file? Weird verb choice.

this patent only applies if you through a lot of formatting crap into your XML file as well

This misspelling makes this sentence read to me as This patent only applies if you, through a lot of formatting, crap into your XML file [...]

Re:Won't hold up

[TimothyDavis]

Are you really calling Microsoft a patent troll for requiring a license to use the Fat32 file system?

I think my definition of 'patent troll' differs from yours.

Re:Stop the madness

[eldrberry]

Don't sugar coat it. Tell us what you think.

Re:Stop the madness

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree, can't we have some happy news about robot kittens or something!!

Xtend, Mbrace, Litigate?

[MartinSchou]

That one I could see them getting a patent on, but on something that uses the abbreviation for "eXtensible Markup Language"?

Extending the use of it is what it was designed to do in the fist place.

Re:Xtend, Mbrace, Litigate?

[pmarini]

so they've patented the extention, fine by me, that seems doable or at least is copyrightable (as improvements).
now, the issue that I have is that they've been granted a patent on their specific method to store/abuse a text-processing document in XML, but what about other methods that do similar things?
the Patent Office should stop granting patents that it doesn't understand...

Re:Xtend, Mbrace, Litigate?

[burgundysizzle]

...

Extending the use of it is what it was designed to do in the fist place.

I find your comment intriguing and would like to subscribe to your newsletter but only if you will let me know where this "fist" place is.

Re:Xtend, Mbrace, Litigate?

[Anonymous Coward]

More like: eXtend, eMbrace, eLiminate.

Re:Xtend, Mbrace, Litigate?

[julesh]

Extending the use of it is what it was designed to do in the fist place.

Yes. But this doesn't stop any _particular_ extension from being innovative and therefore patentable. As much as I disagree with software patents, I don't actually see an awful lot wrong with this one. The format described in the patent has some interesting and non-obvious features, and a format would have to combine all of them to be infringing.

The 'hints' element particularly is something I don't suspect other applications have used before.

Also unusual and unlikely to have been used in other applications are bookmarking sections using a start bookmark marker and an end bookmark marker that are not the same tag (i.e. <startbookmark />text<endbookmark />), and including a text-only copy of the document without markup alongside the marked-up copy.

So, yeah, as software patents go this one isn't particularly bad, is the only real conclusion I can come to from actually, you know, reading it.

Re:Xtend, Mbrace, Litigate?

[shaka]

Extending the use of it is what it was designed to do in the fist place.

Yes. But this doesn't stop any _particular_ extension from being innovative and therefore patentable. As much as I disagree with software patents, I don't actually see an awful lot wrong with this one.

You disagree with software patents, but this one's a-ok? That doesn't sound right.

The format described in the patent has some interesting and non-obvious features, and a format would have to combine all of them to be infringing.

Or maybe, just maybe it's about control of the applications that manipulates said documents, rather than MS wanting to protect their amazingly genius document format?

The 'hints' element particularly is something I don't suspect other applications have used before.

Apparently, the patent examiner didn't think the hints element was anything new. She higlighted instead the bookmark element, the text element, the text run element and, perhaps the most surprising, the document properties element. The information about the reasons for approval is available at the Patent Application Information Retrieval System (unfortunately, it seems to be a hack system delivered by IBM, so YMMV).

Also unusual and unlikely to have been used in other applications are bookmarking sections using a start bookmark marker and an end bookmark marker that are not the same tag (i.e. <startbookmark />text<endbookmark />) [...]

Oh...! You mean kind of like <a name="chapter-1">text</a>? Yeah, that's definitely novel and non-obvious... To anyone who has never seen HTML.

Re:Xtend, Mbrace, Litigate?

[julesh]

You disagree with software patents, but this one's a-ok? That doesn't sound right.

I disagree with software patents, but this one is no worse than most, and plays by the established rules for them. I'd like to see those rules changed, but this is legally valid and well within the boundaries of normality.

Or maybe, just maybe it's about control of the applications that manipulates said documents, rather than MS wanting to protect their amazingly genius document format?

Yes, obviously nobody really cares about the _format_, and a format as such isn't patentable anyway. The patent concerns applications to manipulate documents, or more specifically to produce them, and that's clearly what MS has an interest in preventing.

Oh...! You mean kind of like <a name="chapter-1">text</a>? Yeah, that's definitely novel and non-obvious... To anyone who has never seen HTML.

No, the specific point is that it uses an open & close tag to start the bookmark, then another open & close one to end it. Presumably the intent is to allow bookmarks to be inserted without having to open and close formatting tags (e.g. <startbookmark name="bookmark1" />some stuff with <b>formatting<endbookmark name="bookmark1" /> embedded in it</b>).

What's wrong with America?

[bogaboga]

Folks reading stories like these will simply conclude that America is on the wrong path. To be more accurate, I think folks at the patent office suffer from effects of "thought disorders."

Re:What's wrong with America?

[Anonymous Coward]

Meow Said the Dog? Is that you?

Re:What's wrong with America?

[sjames]

No. I know someone with a thought disorder that makes a lot more sense than the USPTO.

Re:What's wrong with America?

[Tubal-Cain]

The problem seems to be that we have too large a library of patents to wade through and not enough people that can both interpret obfuscated technobable and identify prior art. At least, not at patent examiner's wages.

Re:What's wrong with America?

[Anonymous Coward]

Folks reading stories like these will simply conclude that America is on the wrong path.

I had already figured that one out. What with your bankrupt industry and endless unwinnable wars.

Re:What's wrong with America?

[sgbett]

nothing a little xslt can't fix

Re:What's wrong with America?

[Anonymous Coward]

Folks reading stories like these will simply conclude that America is on the wrong path. To be more accurate, I think folks at the patent office suffer from effects of "thought disorders."

This is the tame stuff. We *are* on the wrong path. When the President wants to *force* rich people to pay for health insurance for the poor (instead of letting them give to charity if and when they want to) and spends money with the assumption it grows on trees (i.e. printing presses) then we have already set foot on the wrong path. And, in fact, we are well down that path at this point. When will we hit the dead end? Hard to say, but there *is* a dead end.

Re:What's wrong with America?

[Important Remark]

Europeans reading this story will know that America is on the wrong path by granting pattents on software. We don't have it here and that is for a reason.

Re:What's wrong with America?

[dna_(c)(tm)(r)]

3: What we suck at is leaving other countries to die.

Silly mistake you made there: "3: What we suck at is leaving other countries alone."

Re:What's wrong with America?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh don't worry, we don't think that you have "thought disorders". We just think you value capitalism and big corporations more than reason and democracy. After all, this is what it's about: rights only for those who can pay for them.

Re:What's wrong with America?

[mrjb]

When the President wants to *force* rich people to pay for health insurance for the poor

It's called TAX. Everyone in the world pays it. And it only makes sense that people with higher incomes are taxed more than people who can't- that's why income tax is generally higher for rich people.

Charity isn't in the interest of the poor, because of *who* decides where the money goes; in the case of tax, everyone decides (it's called democracy). In the case of charity, only the rich have decision power- and if you're poor and left out of this so-called charity you're just going to have to suck it up.

Re:What's wrong with America?

[sazy]

Yet one more reason to buy gold, guns & ammo.

Re:What's wrong with America?

[Anonymous Coward]

Folks reading stories like these will simply conclude that America is on the wrong path.

Yes, we do. Well, did, actually, since quite some time.

Don't worry, though. Most parts of the rest of the world are doing what they can to steer themselves towards the same (or an equivalent) path as well. Just as the good ol' US often is early with nice things, it more often than not is right up there with the really bad stuff too. Way, way too often.

Meh. Now I got all grumpy again.

Re:What's wrong with America?

[Svartalf]

Considering that the Government has, traditionally, been very poor at doing the deciding... (Medicare's a good portion of why healthcare is screwed up in this country. Insurance only pays 20% over what Medicare typically pays when they pay out. Medicare only pays usually 20-30% of the billed amount. That's what we've had up to this point with what taxes they HAVE taken from all of us in the form of FICA witholding... Unless they can prove beyond a shadow of a doubt they'll do better with what they're planning, you can expect more of the same, actually...)

Re:What's wrong with America?

[suburbanmediocrity]

WWED? (What Would Einstein Do)

Re:What's wrong with America?

[glitch23]

It's called TAX. Everyone in the world pays it. And it only makes sense that people with higher incomes are taxed more than people who can't- that's why income tax is generally higher for rich people.

A certain amount of taxes are required in order to pay for items like infrastructure however if those who do not currently have insurance need it then make them pay for it. Making someone else pay for it is just wrong.

Contrary to what you believe, it isn't right for people with higher incomes to be taxed more. You probably just think that because it has been that way for so long but it doesn't make it right, or the best, method. You can only tax people so much before they have no money left. In many cases the rich make the world go around because of the excess income they have to spend but that will dwindle the more they are taxed. The tax breaks they get for giving to charity are also going away (thanks to Obama) so what incentive do they have to continue giving away money? They are being taxed more as well so they have 2 reasons to horde their money. Good job Obama.

I presume you aren't one of the ones who will be affected by the higher taxes coming. I'd guess that if you are in the U.S. then you are probably in the ~$33K-~$78K tax bracket. What if you were in a much higher tax bracket? Yes you would make more money but you would be paying a lot more in taxes. Would you prefer to be taxed based on your income when its *your* income that is being taxed quite heavily? It's easy to say you prefer people to be taxed based income when you aren't one who is having your hard earned money taken away from you in vast amounts (that assumes you already pay some, albeit lower, federal taxes) such as the 28% tax rate for the ~$78K-~$168K bracket and the ~50% for those who make millions a year. "Because they can afford it" is not a valid excuse for championing that method of taxation. Jealousy would be a better word to describe it. I just joined the ranks of the ~$78K-~$168K tax bracket. Luckily I still won't have to pay for someone else's insurance but part of my increase is gobbled up by additional federal taxes both because they work based on percentages but also because the percentage will be increasing. I don't mind paying for infrastructure and other items because other people also pay for it (although not as much as I do). But to *only* tax the rich to pay for insurance for those who don't currently have it is just socialism and unfairly targeting a certain group of people (profiling anyone?) arbitrarily defined by a smaller group of people. Those who prefer that want someone to take care of them and/or to level the playing field by taking money from the rich people because they are just jealous of the rich. One side effect though is that it gives the government more control of the people. I bet if Obama decided that your tax bracket needed to be taxed to support socialized medicine you would be singing a different tune. All of a sudden your income level becomes a member of the "higher income" group you mentioned.

As far as who decides where the money goes, if you haven't already noticed, the people in Washington are not paying attention to what the people want. Therefore democracy is breaking down. Many people, including senior citizens, do not want socialized medicine because they know how well it has *not* worked elsewhere. Those who complain are branded idiots with the premise that the government knows better than the people how to take care of us. But Congressmen aren't listening; therefore they are the only ones deciding where the money is going and it is going towards socialized medicine. I don't know about you (who seems to prefer hand-holding) but I prefer to always be in control of my money. I at least can make better decisions than a gov't who wants to spend money to save money and who believes it just grows on trees. I can also choose who I want to give my money to as charity rather than some fat cat deciding when and how much of my money to take to give to some

two patent offices

[wizardforce]

it's already been suggested however this makes a decent case for a system with two competing patent offices. one to produce patents and the other invalidates them. give each a financial incentive to defend its position and let them fight it out. if the patent creating office issues a bogus patent and the patent invalidating office catches it, the patent creating office loses funding while the invalidating office gains funding.

Re:two patent offices

[Delwin]

Don't bother. Just overhaul the entire IP system. So far Trademarks is the only member of the three types of IP that doesn't with regularity make headlines with how broken it is.

Re:two patent offices

[RedWizzard]

Don't bother. Just overhaul the entire IP system. So far Trademarks is the only member of the three types of IP that doesn't with regularity make headlines with how broken it is.

I guess you've missed all the stories where sues for "breaching" their trademark? Here's a recent example. Another that's been bought up on Slashdot is Nissan Motors vs Nissan Computer. I agree that trademark law is the sanest of the three, but it still gets plenty of abuse.

Re:two patent offices

[Delwin]

OK, but at least Industrial Design and Trade Secret (the red headed stepchildren of IP rights) don't make much news...

Re:two patent offices

[grub]

Just overhaul the entire IP system.

Yep, every person who adopts IPv6 is another person free from Microsoft's evil embrace!
Err.. wait a minute...

.

Re:two patent offices

[PPH]

The second patent office already exists. Its called the court system.

The problem with the funding system is: You (the accused infringer) fund that second one.

Re:two patent offices

[OverZealous.com]

I've always wondered why we don't adjust the incentives for the patent reviewers better. (Forgive me if this is stupid, I have never personally applied for, nor looked into the process of applying for, a patent.)

1. Increase the cost for getting a patent approved to something fairly serious. I mean, if it cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars to develop, then spending $10K to get it patented (or whatever amount is appropriate) would be worth it. If you only spent $1000 to produce it, the dang thing shouldn't be patented anyway.
2. If you submit a patent, you lose the money, period, whether it is approved or not.
3. If the patent is not approved, you get fined double the cost of the original patent. This would prevent nut jobs from trying to patent everything under the sun.
4. You cannot submit another patent if you have any outstanding fines.

Of course, this is on top of fixing the patent system itself (no software patents, shorter limits, etc). The goal above is to make it more worth it for the reviewer to reject a patent than approve it, since apparently the opposite is currently true.

Re:two patent offices

[Sir_Lewk]

if it cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars to develop, then spending $10K to get it patented (or whatever amount is appropriate) would be worth it. If you only spent $1000 to produce it, the dang thing shouldn't be patented anyway.

That's absurd. That would limiting the use of the patent system to large companies (the guys currently abusing the system) and completely destroy the notion of the independant inventor. Brilliant and patentable ideas don't have to be expensive.

Re:two patent offices

[unity]

Somebody always posts something I want to mod up when I don't have mod points.

Re:two patent offices

[a_n_d_e_r_s]

Actually the cost of application for a patent is the cheap part - the more expensive part is the cost for the patent lawyer to write up the patent in legalese.

Re:two patent offices

[Anonymous Coward]

Simple solution, your first patent cost $1000, your second $2000, your third $4000 and so on. That way small inventors can still get patent protection at a cheap rate, but the Mircosofts and IBMs of the world wouldn't be able to DOS the Patent Office with thousands of patents a year.

I still find the old Gillette advert proudly claiming that the Mach3 is protected by 42 patents absolutely crazy. How can a razor head made up of 3 blades, a little spring and a little pivot point possibly have 42 related patents!

Re:two patent offices

[fulldecent]

The patent office currently is not funded, it is a revenue-generating operation.

They made this abundantly clear when they were recruiting at my college.

Re:two patent offices

[Anonymous Coward]

completely destroy the notion of the independant inventor

The notion of an independent inventor is part of the problem we have with our patent system. It's a myth used to defend our current system, but examples of it are incredibly rare.

Re:two patent offices

[Anonymous Coward]

That would limiting the use of the patent system to large companies (the guys currently abusing the system) and completely destroy the notion of the independant inventor.

The notion that patents help independent inventors is a crazy fantasy, and the sooner it's destroyed, the better.

New Rolling Stone cover

[Anonymous Coward]

I love how crapping all over the Constitution qualifies as "bold action" in some peoples' minds. Hey, as long as the ends justify the means, right? Isn't that the kind of philosophy that had the left shrieking for the last 8 years? Funny how all that shrieking stopped, and now we're to believe that the only dissent is from imposters from far-right organizations. Gee, it couldn't possibly be that as bad as dealing with health insurance companies is, most Americans realize that dealing with a mouth-breathing government bureaucrat would be 10x worse. Naaaah, that couldn't be it at all. Hey, how's that domestic wire tapping and total withdraw from Iraq going, guys? LOL, change indeed! The only thing that really changed is that now Hugo Chavez, Miguel Zayala, Kim Jong Il, & Marmaduke Ahmajerk have a friend in the White House.

Re:New Rolling Stone cover

[dunng808]

Funny how all that shrieking stopped

I hadn't noticed.

Re:New Rolling Stone cover

[capnkr]

You must be new here...

Re:New Rolling Stone cover

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently there are several people who think this is 'informative'. Boggles the mind...

Not another one of these

[Anonymous Coward]

Lots of companies have to get patents on everything just to protect themselves from lawyers. Deal with it. This is getting Old, Microsoft isn't the only entity that does it. You don't like it, change the system but quit with the obsessive observance of Microsoft patents. OR better yet, get rid of the real Patent trolls that put major companies on the defensive patent claim train.

Re:Not another one of these

[MightyMartian]

Look, you fucking retard, markup languages have been around longer than Bill Gates was stroking himself in front of computer. The whole point of markup languages like SGML, TeX, HTML and so forth was to construct fucking documents, you worthless piece of human filth. XML is simply one extrapolation of SGML, but the underlying concept, you piece of mentally handicapped excrement, is encapsulating documents and other data.

So fuck off you, you moronic turd. Quit defending a clearly fraudulently gained patent, you simpering piece of goose fuck leftovers.

Re:Not another one of these

[dunng808]

Parent is NOT flame bait! Nor a troll. Colorfull, yes, but on topic. Don't mod language, mod ideas.

Add to the list the old Unix nroff/troff macro tags as still used in the man system. dot P for new paragraph, etc. The GNU troff is copyright 1989 by FSF.

If the distinction is a text editor that formats on the fly then this may not suffice, but less would show most of the formatting on-screen. Copyright 1984 Mark Nudelman, part of the GNU project.

Re:Not another one of these

[Anonymous Coward]

"...you simpering piece of goose fuck leftovers."

Wow! MightyMartian, are you guarding a French castle?

Re:Not another one of these

[capnkr]

It was an *English* castle, with French 'keh-nigits'.
Now go away.

Fetchez la vache!

:)

Re:Not another one of these

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't those people like the parent poster who are overly pleasant about Microsoft annoy you?

Re:Not another one of these

[idlemachine]

OR better yet, get rid of the real Patent trolls that put major companies on the defensive patent claim train.

You mean like all the patent licensing firms started by ex-MS employees?

I wonder where they got the idea from that that was a viable business model...

OpenDocument

[Tubal-Cain]

So basically, OOXML was a way to acquire a patent that could kill ODF-using applications in the US (that can't get legal backing, anyways)

Re:OpenDocument

[DragonWriter]

So basically, OOXML was a way to acquire a patent that could kill ODF-using applications in the US

This patent wouldn't seem to affect OpenDocument, since OpenDocument files are not, AFAIK, single XML files, they are JAR archives with several XML files (and others) inside.

Re:OpenDocument

[Anonymous Coward]

I wouldn't get so upset if I were you.

The patent clearly states that it is for A word document in A SINGLE XML file. ODF is a zip file with many XML and binary files inside so is outside the scope of this patent by a long shot.

I haven't looked into the specific claims much but they seem to be full of holes too.

Re:OpenDocument

[Halotron1]

The patent clearly states that it is for A word document in A SINGLE XML file. ODF is a zip file with many XML and binary files inside so is outside the scope of this patent by a long shot.

OOXML files (.docx, etc) are also zip files with multiple XML files. If you take a .docx file and rename it .docx.zip you can unzip it and check it out.
I just made a simple test.docx, and there were 7 files in the zip.

So, since the patent CLEARLY states that it is for a single document, does that mean this patent is for vaporware, or is Office 2010 going to change their OOXML implementation to be a single XML file instead of a bunch of them zipped up?

Or did MS screw up and somebody filed the wrong verbiage?

Re:OpenDocument

[shutdown -p now]

This patent wouldn't seem to affect OpenDocument, since OpenDocument files are not, AFAIK, single XML files, they are JAR archives with several XML files (and others) inside.

Even funnier is that so are OOXML files. I've no idea what the patent is supposed to be about...

WTF???

[Jane Q. Public]

How in the world can anybody even pretend to patent something that is entirely within AN OPEN STANDARD?

The very concept is ludicrous. We need to fire those people in the PTO, and replace them with homeless bums. At least they might get something right once in a while.

Re:WTF???

[Anonymous Coward]

How about the following patent:
"A system of rules for IP registration designed to: A. minimize innovation, B. maximize the profit of whoever already has the most cash."

Re:WTF???

[Anonymous Coward]

What does XML being an open standard have to do with anything? The requirements for patentability are:

novel
non-obvious
useful

Ignoring the controversies of software patents for the purposes of this discussion, if they were able to demonstrate a novel, non-obvious, and useful invention regarding XML word processing then they have met the requirements. That being said, I find it difficult to believe they have demonstrated that. Regardless, the fact that XML is open has nothing to do with the patentability of something that makes use of XML.

Re:WTF???

[man_of_mr_e]

Maybe because you didn't bother to actually read the patent and are going on the inaccurate summary?

99% of the people on slashdot seem to be completely ignorant of how patents actually work, yet aren't afraid to criticize them based on their lack of understanding. You're one of them, most likley.

Patents have to be taken as a whole, for all the claims.. not just one or two of them. Yes, nearly all patents are based on other patented or non-patented ideas, it's the combination of claims that make it unique.

Re:WTF???

[rrohbeck]

Neither novel nor non-obvious apply since SGML has been around for decades.

Re:WTF???

[lastomega7]

There's already prior art for that...

so it should be really easy to get. :/

Re:WTF???

[jrumney]

Wrong. Each claim stands alone, that is why they always start with a basic all encompassing Claim 1, which probably wouldn't hold up under scrutiny, and refine it in later clauses to cover every special case they can think of. Usually at least some of the claims are mutually exclusive, so to create something that violated all of the claims at once would be impossible.

Re:WTF???

[Anonymous Coward]

Whats your basis for this? Are you a lawyer? Okay then.

Re:WTF???

[Ungrounded Lightning]

What does XML being an open standard have to do with anything?

The fact that it was an open standard FOR REPRESENTING DOCUMENTS AS FILE CONTENTS so they can be MANIPULATED BY COMPUTER PROGRAMS should make it clear that representing a document as a single XML file and writing an editor to edit such documents were explicitly contemplated in the open standard. And the fact that the standard was open constitutes publishing this prior art.

If Microsoft came up with something novel, non-obvious, and useful ABOUT editing a document represented entirely within a single XML file they would be entitled to a patent on THAT ASPECT. But that doesn't constitute inventing the editing of XML document files in general and thus doesn't entitle them to such a patent.

Note that it's entirely possible that the slashdot article misrepresented what was patented. This has happened a lot in the past. So perhaps Microsoft did come up with some cuteness to include in an XML editor and that was what they patented.

But that would not make as big a splash on the Slashdot front page. B-)

Re:WTF???

[xaboo]

Bingo, we have a winner! It is about how we (tax payers / voters / consumers) spend our money! The amount of money spent on patenting anything software related is a huge waste. If this money was spent on free software development copyrights and open standards, the entire human race could move forward in a positive manner. {sarcasm starts here} But hey, why not continue to allow monopolies to waste human resources re-inventing the wheel? It is not like we need to stimulate the economy with competition and new technologies that benefit everyone. {sarcasm ends}

Re:WTF???

[dunng808]

What does XML being an open standard have to do with anything? The requirements for patentability are: novel non-obvious useful

Being an open standard eliminates novel and non-obvious. Do not confuse with mp3, where the patent came before the open standard. Same for RSA crypto, at least in USA.

Re:WTF???

[dunng808]

oops, blew my blockquote tag away.

Re:WTF???

[dunng808]

99% of the people on slashdot seem to be completely ignorant of how patents actually work, yet aren't afraid to criticize them based on their lack of understanding. You're one of them, most likley.

Patents have to be taken as a whole, for all the claims

I see you are one of the 99%. Patent applications have a long list of claims going from general to specific. The examiner can toss out the broader claims. After that it is up to the court. The court does not get involved until there is a plaintiff, and patent cases, being civil cases, can be extremly expensive to litigate. FOSS projects are by nature too poor to play.

Re:WTF???

[man_of_mr_e]

I fail to understand what your point is. Yes, patent claims are written general to specific, but you have to take ALL the claims into account, not just the general ones (which will obviously fall under the "duh, that's prior art" category).

Patents are like an onion, and you can only patent the entire onion, not just the inner bits.

Re:WTF???

[man_of_mr_e]

Can you point to a single patent application with mutually exclusive claims? I've never seen one.

No, each claim does not stand on it's own, because in most cases those claims are built upon prior patents owned by others. They're merely one step in the chain of claims that lead to a patent. All the claims have to be true to be patentable.

If your reasoning were correct, no patent would be valid because most are written like this:

Claim 1: A foo bar.
Claim 2: A foo bar (as in claim 1) with foozle skins.
Claim 3: A foo bar with foozle skins (as in claims 1 and 2) with green thingamajobs.

Now, if each item stands on it's own, that would be 3 patents, and if claim 1 were invalid, claims 2 and 3 would be invalid because they're based on them.

Re:WTF???

[RegularFry]

I'm afraid you've got it backwards. Say you have the patent you describe, and you accuse me of violating claim 3. I can knock down claim 1 and still be on the hook for claim 2 - that is, I'm still infringing unless I can *also* knock down claims 2 and 3.

This is the whole point of having dependent claims in patents. If this wasn't the case, you'd just have written:

        Claim 1: A foo bar with foozle skins and green thingamajobs.

The patent you describe can still be valid if claim 1 is decided to be invalid, because the later claims describe more detailed inventions.

Re:WTF???

[radtea]

If Microsoft came up with something novel, non-obvious, and useful ABOUT editing a document represented entirely within a single XML file they would be entitled to a patent on THAT ASPECT

Which is indeed exactly what they have done. The first claim:

1. A method for creating a document in XML ("Extensible Markup Language") in a computing device that is understandable by many applications, comprising: accessing a published XSD ("XML Schema Definition") in said computing device, wherein the XSD defines rules relating to the XML file format for documents associated with an application having a rich set of features; determining an element to create in an XML file in said computing device, wherein the element is selected from a set of elements, including: a style element; a hints element that includes information to assist an external application in displaying text of the of the document; a bookmark element; wherein the bookmark element includes an identifier attribute that associates a start bookmark with an end bookmark element wherein two bookmark elements are used in book marking a portion of the document; wherein each of the two bookmark elements include an opening tag and an ending tag; a document properties element; a text element that contains text of the document; wherein all of the text of the document is stored within text elements such that only the text of the document is contained between start text tags and end text tags; wherein there are no intervening tags between each of the start text tags and each of the corresponding end text tags and wherein each of the start text tags do not include formatting information for the text between each of the start text tags and the end text tags; a text run element that includes the formatting information for the text within text elements; a font element; a formatting element; a section element; a table element; an outline element; and a proofing element; creating the document including the element in said computing device; and storing the document in said computing device.

To translate: they've patented a means of formating an XML document that takes all the formating information out, so the text appears as all your text belong in here with absolutely no styling or formating information, which is all run-encoded in other parts of the document.

Stupid, that this is patentable, yes, but a far cry from the false summary /. gives.

Note that it's entirely possible that the slashdot article misrepresented what was patented.

No, it is absolutely certain that the /. article misrepresented what was patented, because that is what /. does: spread patent falsehoods.

Re:WTF???

[harlows_monkeys]

Neither novel nor non-obvious apply since SGML has been around for decades

How can you tell that without reading the claims?

Re:WTF???

[Jane Q. Public]

Further, a simple combination of other, already-patented items is not eligible for a patent, unless that combination performs a new, non-obvious function. For example, a can opener welded to a backhoe would not be patentable, unless it could do something unique to that combination... opening cans and digging holes is not enough.

That is, according to the PTO's own rules. I am not saying that they have been properly following those rules. They pretty obviously haven't in many cases, and for a number of years now.

Re:WTF???

[Jane Q. Public]

Also, if it is in XML, which is a defined "language" you should not be able to patent it, any more than you can patent a sentence in English. Yes, you can define your own "words" in XML, but you can in English, too.

Re:WTF???

[Jane Q. Public]

There is nothing in that definition that contradicts my original statement. The document definition is still contained entirely withing XML, and that is what XML is designed to do!

That is like saying that a new way of diagramming English sentences such that punctuation is kept at a different place in the sentence than the words. It is perfectly possible to do that. But is it patentable? I think not.

smells like..

[el_tedward]

I don't get how these idiots get around giving out patents like this. It makes about as much sense as apples app approval process.

Re:Stop the madness

[LaskoVortex]

I agree, can't we have some happy news about robot kittens or something!!

In other news, caring for kittens has been patented by Monsanto. Petting them has been patented by PetSmart. And taking endless pictures of them with your cell phone has been patented by Motorola. As a prevention, the new coalition Monotoromart is now hunting down and killing any cuddly, lovable, but otherwise adorably indignant animals in an effort to minimize "market confusion".

2004 called..

[RightSaidFred99]

2004 called and it wants...etc.. you know the rest.

They filed this a long time ago, and of course for good reason as if they didn't some asshole little company would set up shop in east Texas and sue. As the kids say, don't hate the player hate the game. Our patent system is fucking retarded.

Re:2004 called..

[MightyMartian]

The point is that SGML predates XML (XML is simply a derivative of SGML). The notion of building documents in this way predates the existence of Microsoft, let alone this particular patent.

Re:2004 called..

[Hurricane78]

But you forget the final connection. Why is it retarded? Because someone makes it to work that way.
It's a great system for those that profit from it.

As I said earlier, it's the problem of revolving door and lobbies, or else the patent office would long be changed.

You really need to update your constitution. (But not the bad way.)
Plan very very wisely, take out the old guillotine, and storm DC. (Warning: If you in that process become what you hate, you fail! And the risk of this happening is extremely high. Hence the planning.)

Re:2004 called..

[rlp]

More like the 1980's called ...

Nroff, troff, LaTex, ...

Re:2004 called..

[samkass]

Which of the claims in particular are you referring to? I assume you read them if you're going to claim this patent shouldn't have been granted.

As is normal in patent submissions of slashdot article, the summary has only a vague relationship to the actual claims, and its a patents claims (not its summary or description) that are what must be defended in court.

My reading of the claims seems to indicate a particular arrangement of tags with specific semantic meaning, not simply the encoding of any word processing into XML.

Re:2004 called..

[Anonymous Coward]

You're a little... etc... you know the rest.

Re:2004 called..

[Anonymous Coward]

*Your* patent system is fucking retarded.

*Our* politicians trying to emulate your country are also fucking retarded.

Re:2004 called..

[Anonymous Coward]

As the kids say, don't hate the player hate the game.

Without the players, there would be no game.

CYA is understandable, but what is Microsoft doing in the meantime to overturn the patent system? Nothing.

In other words, Microsoft is both part of the problem and not part of the solution.

Re:2004 called..

[Bob9113]

don't hate the player hate the game

I also hate players who do not make an effort to make the game better.

This isn't pimping, it is our economy. Our ability to compete with other nations. If the so-called leaders of industry can't be bothered to defend the free market, they should be hated. That is the role of the silent hand of the free market, to withhold trade from such bad actors, until they reform or fail.

If we, the silent hand, do not correct them, either their friction will continue to impede the GDP, or the government will have to impose its inefficient regulation. Is it not better for us, the silent hand, to make a well-informed decision about our purchases? to make a decision which includes rational contemplation of the effect the corporation in question has on our national economy?

Should we, the silent hand of the free market, abdicate our economic responsibility in favor of a sing-song ditty used by basketball players to justify hard fouls?

This isn't a basketball game. It is the economic future of our nation. Given our influence both direct and indirect, it has a strong effect on the economy of the entire planet. Considering these issues seriously is our duty. If you don't want to participate, fine. But don't fault others for doing their duty to preserve the free market.

Re:2004 called..

[0ld_d0g]

There i'snt a *single* investor in the entire united states who would give money (I'm talking about serious money..) to a startup who *doesn't* want to patent whatever tech their business is going to produce.

Also, given that the big corporates like Oracle, Sun, MS, Apple get sued on a daily basis, having a big patent chest is the best thing they can do to protect themselves. In fact not patenting tech they produce could be seen as negligent behavior and shareholders could sue. MS has over ten thousand patents and have *hardly* sued anybody (compared to the more litigious 'cool' company elsewhere in california) , its just childish to single them out. But hey, its a free country.. :p

Re:2004 called..

[Anonymous Coward]

don't hate the player hate the game is used for people who just got cheated on. its a fucking stupid viewpoint

if someone gets cheated on, they shouldnt sit there and say "you know, i'm perfectly cool with my ex and their lover, its this stupid fucking game thats the problem. boy i sure hate people going out and meeting each other and having fun and possibly even sex. thats so screwed up! i dont need clubs and bars and cheap women, im so above that. was a stupid fucking game, all these sheep just conforming to society and wanting pleasure and sex its disgusting. but im cool with my ex because she still loves me and im happy that her and her new boyfriend are happy together because i love her and hope for the best in her life even if it isnt me"

now lets apply that back to whatever the hell was being talked about and im sure it will prove microsoft and the patent office both suck

Re:2004 called..

[Bob9113]

There i'snt a *single* investor in the entire united states who would give money (I'm talking about serious money..) to a startup who *doesn't* want to patent whatever tech their business is going to produce.

I agree that is also true, and a problem. Investor money is concentrated in business models that can fabricate a barrier to entry. A healthy market would spread such money more broadly to include startups that simply fill a gap in regional supply, for example. There are, of course, many more examples than this of how the patent game has distorted the free market. But I am being too miserly with my praise -- I haven't really thought about this particular aspect as critique of the patent system, and I appreciate you pointing it out.

Also, given that the big corporates like Oracle, Sun, MS, Apple get sued on a daily basis, having a big patent chest is the best thing they can do to protect themselves.

This is one I have spent some time thinking about, and again I concur. The fact that the patent system as it is currently distorted creates a need for corporations to fabricate defensive portfolios is a significant source of economic friction. It is yet another reason to hate the game and it is often overlooked. It is pleasing to hear someone else point it out.

MS has over ten thousand patents and have *hardly* sued anybody

It is true that they rarely throw hard fouls. That does not change the fact that they are not opposing the badly distorted patent system. In fact they have invested extensively in lobbying to make it work better for them. For example, the increased paperwork requirements they have been pushing which favor corporations with in-house legal departments over independent inventors and small businesses.

(compared to the more litigious 'cool' company elsewhere in california)

Not sure which one you're referring to, Apple or Google (those seem like the most likely to be called "cool"), but I give them no quarter in their support of inefficient artificial barriers to entry either.

its just childish to single them out

Yes, it would be. I do not. It is good of you to help guide those in our community who apply double standards. Given that this thread was about Microsoft, though, I do not feel that posting on-topic was out of line.

(aside: you should have seen my fire-breathing rant about Apple's false testimony to the FTC in defense of their trust with AT&T, despite the fact that I own and love my Macbook, on my main mailing list -- but I digress)

But hey, its a free country..

Not always, but I have great respect for the sentiment.
 
:p

Awww, come on -- we're just getting to the good part of the thought process, after the initial conflict, where we seek our common ground. I think this stage is better marked with a :)

Proposal

[SilverHatHacker]

Ok, I would apply for a patent on this great *new* idea, but I can't afford the fees and such. Anyone interested in contributing? I'll cut you a share of the profits later.
A patent for: a method of sustaining life by filling a pair of internal sacs with air through the expansion and contraction of the diaphragm muscle.
(I'm actually half-serious here, if there is anyone crazy enough to help me out with it.)

Re:Proposal

[whistlingtony]

You know what? I'd LOVE to. I think it would be a gas. PM me. :D

-Tony

Buzzword compliant.

[Tubal-Cain]

Word-processing document stored in a single XML file...

How many ways are there to store a document? Markup (Postscript, XML, LaTeX, etc) and Binary are the only two I can think of. Using a different markup language is hardly an earth-shattering new development.

Bad Summary

[Grond]

As is all too often the case here on Slashdot, the summary has seized upon the title of the patent, which has no legal effect whatsoever, while ignoring the actual patent claims, which are all important.

If one actually reads the claims, one sees that the main new part of the invention are the 'hint elements' contained in the XML file. The written description expands upon what hint elements mean: "hints are provided within the XML associated files providing applications that understand XML a shortcut to understanding some of the features provided by the word-processor. By using the hints, the applications do not have to know all of the specific details of the internal processing of the word-processor in order to recreate a feature."

Basically, the invention here is the inclusion of information that lets third-party programs better understand what to do with the format. You can imagine, for example, if HTML included something like this. The del ('strikethrough') tag might be written:

<del hint="draw line 1px horizontal">

That code would allow a program that did not natively understand the tag to implement a simple version of it. The idea is to allow new features to be introduced into the format while enabling older versions of the software to use them without updating their code. The necessary code comes with the file.

Now, whether that's still new and nonobvious, I don't know, but it's a significantly more accurate summary of the invention than "Microsoft Patents XML Word Processing Documents."

Re:Bad Summary

[Jerry Coffin]

As is all too often the case here on Slashdot, the summary has seized upon the title of the patent, which has no legal effect whatsoever, while ignoring the actual patent claims, which are all important.

Geeze, there you go ruining everybody's fun, posting facts instead of completely uninformed complaints.

Next you'll point out that the patent cites no fewer than 77 other patents going back to 1988 as related art, or that it cites 113 other documents, including documentation for file formats of things like AbiWord, StarOffice, Wisdom++, Docbook, WorX, MML, XMill, YAWK, and so on and so forth.

Were it not for your UID, I'd have to pull out the "you must be new around here" wheeze, since you're in clear violation of /. groupthink guidelines!

Re:Bad Summary

[dshadowwolf]

You, apparently, have missed out and not read the actual claims of the patent. This patent covers any XML document which has an XSD definition and has:

• rendering hints via an element or property of an element
• a bookmarks element (of which two must be used to be valid)
• a comments element
• a 'text' element
• a 'style' element
• a 'font' element
• a formatting element
• a section element
• a table element
• an outline element
• a proofing element

And any variation of implementation on the above. It also covers the manipulation of a file meeting that description on any computer—whether or not it has the program that generated the file installed.

The thing is... this patent can be read as covering HTML5 in its XML embedding and it completely fails the "obviousness test". How does it fail that test? Because it is, simply, plainly obvious to "one skilled in the field". A lot of the above features have been proposed for ODF and are braindead to add to ODF or any other XML format. Additionally XML is used as a format for storing data simply because it is a well defined format and easily manipulated--so easily, in fact, that there is a complete language defined for manipulation and transformation of XML.

Where it really fails is that it is neither "new" nor "novel. If Netscape had tried to patent the specific version of HTML supported by, say, Navigator 4 there would be as big a backlash. It'd be similar to someone implementing an open spec - say ECMA-262 - and claiming a patent on it as "new" and "novel" because it has a specific set of system interface functions.

Or maybe you'd like a car analogy... In this case it would be like GM filing a patent on a car because their car has a specific feature set as a standard that a company has not put out as standard options before. I hope you now understand exactly why people are rather pissed about this patent.

Re:Bad Summary

[syousef]

Basically, the invention here is the inclusion of information that lets third-party programs better understand what to do with the format. You can imagine, for example, if HTML included something like this. The del ('strikethrough') tag might be written:

Ahhh so Microsoft claims to have invented metadata.

Ahhh, now I see. Really dumbed down metadata that follows no obvious format. It's going to be harder for a developer to code for that than to just code for the feature. Really what you need is some sort of a formal metadata language, which the software interpretting the hint has to be able to interpret. Then the other tool that didn't implement the feature has to implement this metadata language. It's going to be less work to just implement the features.

Now, whether that's still new and nonobvious, I don't know

Really? You've never seen metadata in XML?

Re:Bad Summary

[Hurricane78]

Sorry, but you apparently never understood what HTML it. Is is a purely semantic language. Maybe you started to use it when it wasn't, and so never made the evolutionary step. Which is ok, if you aren't really building pages.

The <del> tag has no visual representation whatsoever associated with it. Just as any other HTML tag.
If you think about layout for even a second, while writing HTML, your web developer license (if you have one) is automatically revoked. ^^

The browser can decide to display it however it wants. It can even not be displayed at all, but output a series of farts of a monkey listening to sounds created from the HTML and dancing wildly inside a large box of food. If you disagree, use CSS. :)

Your example would make more sense this way:
<del cite="http://some.url/explanation.html" datetime="2009-08-07T03:07:05+0200" hint="content that has been deleted at $datetime from the document, because of $cite">...</del>

Re:Bad Summary

[Co0Ps]

I agree that it's important that the summary is accurate. But even if what you say is correct, the claim that a method of "including additional information for 3rd party programs" could be entitled "invention", is laughable to the least.

Arranging and data in a certain way is better labeled as a standard than an invention, imo. Personally I don't see how this patent or any patent, software or not, overcomes their own disadvantages, in respect of contribution to society. Would microsoft have used this XML format without software patents? Certainly. Would companies keep inventing things without patents? Surely. Industry secrecy is enough to get a competive advantage by investing in R&D. But patents wont get discarded anytime soon, both becouse of the "little inventor that want's to protect his awesome invention" myth, and becouse of industry lobbyists. I wonder why there are so few electric cars on the market. Well the fact that, one of the worlds largest oil companies is sitting on important battery technology patents, is enough to give me some ideas. If you combined the cost of all patent lawsuits and patent trolls that do nothing but trade and license patents, I wonder how much you would end up with.

Re:Bad Summary

[dtmos]

I disagree. The claim element says, in relevant part, "determining an element to create in an XML file in said computing device, wherein the element is selected from a set of elements, including . . ." and then lists a number of elements, one of which is "hint elements." The claim does not require a hint element; that's just one of the many elements in the set that could be used. The "including" refers to the set of elements from which any one of the list may be taken.

Re:Bad Summary

[greenbird]

So you're saying that every valid implementation of XML is patentable? The hole point of the markup language is to allow this type of processing. What the hell do you think a markup language is? It's instructions on how to process a document.

Re:Bad Summary

[Nkwe]

Basically, the invention here is the inclusion of information that lets third-party programs better understand what to do with the format.

So how are hints different than schema?

Re:Bad Summary

[Theaetetus]

The thing is... this patent can be read as covering HTML5 in its XML embedding and it completely fails the "obviousness test".

HTML5 was published in June 2002? That's the filing date of this patent, so for HTML5 to be prior art it has to be, well, prior.

Re:Bad Summary

[Theaetetus]

Ahhh so Microsoft claims to have invented metadata.

No, they don't. They claim to have invented one use.

I claim to have invented fire. Do I now claim to have invented everything using fire - the internal combustion engine, fission, fusion, grilling, etc.? No.

Further than that, Microsoft explicitly cites a whole bunch of metadata as prior art. So no, they're not claiming they invented metadata. They're claiming they invented one specific use.

Re:Bad Summary

[wampus]

Needlessly pedantic and completely misses the point. Congratulations, you win the prize.

Re:Bad Summary

[syousef]

I claim to have invented fire. Do I now claim to have invented everything using fire - the internal combustion engine, fission, fusion, grilling, etc.? No.

According to patent law if you patent the processes for starting a fire, then the internal combustion engine and the rest of the derived inventions would violate your patent if they use those processes.

Patents are themselves a terrible invention and they do more to stifle innovation than help it along. Just imagine if patent law were around when the basics were being invented. You'd have to pay to use fire, the wheel, anything with a blade etc.

Re:Bad Summary

[Anonymous Coward]

When you get down to it, how is their patent different from "Putting information in XML files and having applications use it."?

You shouldn't be able to patent "Putting information in XML files and having applications use it.". That's just wrong. You might be able to patent the actual information but certainly not the idea of using XML files to convey information. And I don't care if they want to call the elements "hints". It doesn't change anything.

Re:Bad Summary

[Anonymous Coward]

The written description expands upon what hint elements mean: "hints are provided within the XML associated files providing applications that understand XML a shortcut to understanding some of the features provided by the word-processor. By using the hints, the applications do not have to know all of the specific details of the internal processing of the word-processor in order to recreate a feature."

Basically, the invention here is the inclusion of information that lets third-party programs better understand what to do with the format. You can imagine, for example, if HTML included something like this. The del ('strikethrough') tag might be written:

<del hint="draw line 1px horizontal">

That code would allow a program that did not natively understand the tag to implement a simple version of it. The idea is to allow new features to be introduced into the format while enabling older versions of the software to use them without updating their code. The necessary code comes with the file.

Ah, prior art as in tags and attributes with similar functionality as "style" and "font" in (x)html. And to think that we we abandoned those in favor of external CSS, XML-schemes or just old fashioned DTDs.

I'm not sure when Netscape Composer started to use x(ht)ml instead of html, but it should predate the filing of this patent with a couple of years.

Re:Bad Summary

[Theaetetus]

I claim to have invented fire. Do I now claim to have invented everything using fire - the internal combustion engine, fission, fusion, grilling, etc.? No.

According to patent law if you patent the processes for starting a fire, then the internal combustion engine and the rest of the derived inventions would violate your patent if they use those processes.

Yes, but they're still patentable by whomever invents them. Patent infringement has nothing to do with patentability. This is a good thing and leads to innovation: I patent the process for starting a fire, but to do so, I must publish all the details. You read my patent and realize how to use this process to boil water and make potatoes edible. You patent a method of cooking with fire.

Now, as regards infringement - you infringe my method of starting a fire if you practice the invention, but I would infringe your method of cooking if I practice that. This encourages us to cross-license each other's inventions for mutual benefit.

This happens all the time - one car company will come up with an improvement on a drive train, they'll cross-license it to another car company who has an improvement on the transmission, they both cross-license to another who has an improvement on fuel injectors, etc. In a very real sense, patents act like a mutual assured destruction system - refuse to license your small improvement, and you don't get access to everyone else's. Because people are interested in profit, this doesn't happen.

Patents are themselves a terrible invention and they do more to stifle innovation than help it along. Just imagine if patent law were around when the basics were being invented. You'd have to pay to use fire, the wheel, anything with a blade etc.

No - see above. Furthermore, the first patent statutes were written over 500 years ago. I think there's been plenty of innovation in the past 500 years.
Heck, people rag on business method patents, and that's a separate conversation completely, but there's been more innovation in the past 20 years than in the previous 200. Any argument that patents stifle innovation is founded purely on a "what if" hypothesis, usually with reference to the invention of the steam engine and the patent infringement suits back then. But again, infringement doesn't have anything to do with patentability.

Re:Bad Summary

[dshadowwolf]

Sorry if you didn't manage to read my entire comment to understand what I was actually saying. What I was saying is "HTML5 and its XML encoding are blindingly obvious, just as the XML dialect covered by this patent is blindingly obvious" - ie: the USPTO's "obviousness test", which, apparently, the USPTO is not fit to apply to any patent on software or relating to software

(the "obviousness test" is simple - "is this obvious to someone skilled in the field ?")

Re:Bad Summary

[Theaetetus]

Sorry if you didn't manage to read my entire comment to understand what I was actually saying. What I was saying is "HTML5 and its XML encoding are blindingly obvious, just as the XML dialect covered by this patent is blindingly obvious" - ie: the USPTO's "obviousness test", which, apparently, the USPTO is not fit to apply to any patent on software or relating to software

(the "obviousness test" is simple - "is this obvious to someone skilled in the field ?")

... and maybe you didn't understand my point. The fact that something invented 6 years after the patent makes the patent seem obvious has nothing to do with whether it was obvious in June 2002. Prior art must be prior to either anticipate or show obviousness.

Re:Bad Summary

[dshadowwolf]

HTML5 with its XML encoding was just a "convenient example". The specific example in question has NO bearing on the fact that the XML dialect with the features described in the patent is obvious. It is so obvious, in fact, that numerous word processors have supported the features in various forms in their binary file formats. What that means that including them in an XML version of the same type of file is plainly obvious. Not just obvious but so obvious you'd have to be completely brain-dead to NOT include them.

Or are you still going to try and argue that my point is wrong because I gave an example that you want to find fault with?

Re:Bad Summary

[idlemachine]

So they've patented a particular use for an XML attribute?

...isn't that what attributes are for?

Re:Bad Summary

[harlows_monkeys]

As is all too often the case here on Slashdot, the summary has seized upon the title of the patent, which has no legal effect whatsoever, while ignoring the actual patent claims, which are all important

For reference, here is claim 1:

A method for creating a document in XML ("Extensible Markup Language") in a computing device that is understandable by many applications, comprising: accessing a published XSD ("XML Schema Definition") in said computing device, wherein the XSD defines rules relating to the XML file format for documents associated with an application having a rich set of features; determining an element to create in an XML file in said computing device, wherein the element is selected from a set of elements, including: a style element; a hints element that includes information to assist an external application in displaying text of the of the document; a bookmark element; wherein the bookmark element includes an identifier attribute that associates a start bookmark with an end bookmark element wherein two bookmark elements are used in book marking a portion of the document; wherein each of the two bookmark elements include an opening tag and an ending tag; a document properties element; a text element that contains text of the document; wherein all of the text of the document is stored within text elements such that only the text of the document is contained between start text tags and end text tags; wherein there are no intervening tags between each of the start text tags and each of the corresponding end text tags and wherein each of the start text tags do not include formatting information for the text between each of the start text tags and the end text tags; a text run element that includes the formatting information for the text within text elements; a font element; a formatting element; a section element; a table element; an outline element; and a proofing element; creating the document including the element in said computing device; and storing the document in said computing device.

Besides the claims, it is also important to read the description, because the description is used to figure out what the terms in the claims mean.

Re:Bad Summary

[CAIMLAS]

Hm. So basically, Microsoft just patented word processor XML document 'cross compatibility', giving them a legal monopoly and incentive to sue anyone who implements such a scheme for compatibility reasons. Sounds like a pretty big hammer to use against OO.org, for instance.

(Nevermind that this still falls well within the original intent of XML, and that the concept/idea has been implemented a dozen times over - CSS, for instance.)

Mod parent up

[John Hasler]

n/t

Less bias please

[Co0Ps]

Software patents, great in theory, but this is what happens in practice.

On the summary itself: Even though I agree, can't the slashdot article writers at least TRY to be objective? Save the sarcastic ranting for the comments section please... Let people make up their own opinion by reporting neutrally on a subject. The actual facts are enough. People don't need flashing signs to tell us this is bad.

Re:Less bias please

[Co0Ps]

to get the idea that this is bad. I'm tired.

This patent does not cover ODF

[belmolis]

One of the claims in this patent is that everything is stored in a single XML document. That is not true of ODF. An ODF file is the result of zipping up a bunch of files including not only XML files but various other things, such as image files.

Re:This patent does not cover ODF

[Jamie Lokier]

On the other hand, the XML file inside an ODF file is itself a document stored in a single XML file.

Re:This patent does not cover ODF

[belmolis]

Yes, but that's irrelevant. Microsoft's patent covers a system in which a single XML file contains all of the information about the document. In ODF, there is no single XML file that contains all of the information. So they're two different systems.

Re:This patent does not cover ODF

[Homburg]

Actually, the OpenDocument specification explicitly covers two possibilities: OpenDocument packages, which are zip files containing an XML document, a manifest, and other ancilliary files, and a single XML document, which contains the whole document in one XML file. See section 2.1 of the spec.

Re:This patent does not cover ODF

[Jamie Lokier]

It's arguable; you might win.

As devil's advocate I'd argue that "all the information about the document" depends on what you consider to be the document - basically whether you can use the XML file usefully by itself - and "XML file" is definitely something you have, inside a ZIP archive.

There's enough uncertainty that I doubt you could use this fact alone to get a summary judgement to skip the expensive fight if a fight was started.

Re:This patent does not cover ODF

[Anonymous Coward]

It covers abiword file format (.abi) which is even cited in the patent description page.

Re:This patent does not cover ODF

[shutdown -p now]

It is cited precisely because it's not covered (do you think MS lawyers are idiots, citing prior art in the patent itself?) because it lacks "rendering hints". So do all other document formats listed in the patent - such as XHTML, StarOffice XML, and ODF.

Re:This patent does not cover ODF

[DragonWriter]

On the other hand, the XML file inside an ODF file is itself a document stored in a single XML file.

IIRC, a word processing document is stored as four seperate XML files within the ODF zip structure, each file covering different aspects (structure and text content, styles, etc.) of the document. Now, given the way XML works, anything that you can represent as multiple XML files it is trivial to represent as a single XML file, but that's not how it is actually done in ODF (though, presuming ODF predates what is claimed in the patent, I think ODF might be a basis for arguing obviousness on a putting a word processing document into a single XML File.)

OOXML

[talcite]

Does this patent cover things like OOXML and their the ISO junk?

Re:Sorry Rob but I had to tell...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm thinking Arby's.

Isn't XML documented as coming from SGML?

[david.emery]

And isn't SGML in part something IBM contributed to? So we can hope IBM will contribute to defending "prior art". Without actually reading the patent (I just read the patent abstract), what seems to be "unique" is the XML encoding along with the XSD style sheet; document markup languages are -really old hat- (Scribe's still my personal favorite :-). So "attacking" the patent based on the documented derivation of XML from SGML would seem to me to be a viable strategy, and many mark-up word processors of the previous millennium (including Scribe, if I remember right) had the concept of a 'document style sheet'.

This patent is -particularly stupid- based on the patent abstract. (Hey, if the President can make snap judgements without doing full research, why can't I do it, too???)

Looks like I'm in the wrong line

[smchris]

How much is the typical bribe to a patent supervisor? This is truly a laughable one. I'm not going to bother counting the number of XML books I have on our home book shelves. I guess Microsoft sent them back through the time machine in the Redmond basement.

Last Land Rush

[mindbrane]

The Land Rushes that served up the last of the best lands America had to offer aren't too unlike the rationale driving the patenting of intellectual property. Corporations are driven by the need to protect themselves from potential future costs by claiming every "square inch" of intellectual property the US patent system will allow them to grab. If international laws are put in place governing intellectual property that are enforceable then the current seeming madness is the best available means of positioning American interests for the largest possible slice of the pie. About the time of the last land rushes Spencer's ideology of "survival of the fittest" was being touted as a rationale for the unconscionable actions of Yankee Traders who were infamous for their ruthless greed. It's a hedgemonists' zero sum game. There's method in the madness, madness though it be.

Re:Last Land Rush

[mkarcher]

hedgemonists'

Portmanteau or misspelling? You decide...

Re:Last Land Rush

[mindbrane]

Thanks for pointing that out. By the time I'd sorted through it all I'd had a good laugh. I readily admit my postings to be as risky and careless as rattling an old pinball machine in the hopes of making a few undeserved points.

Ballmer better watch out...

[sadler121]

"Not long ago, the Black Gate of Armonk swung open. The lights went out, my skin crawled, and dogs began to howl. I asked my neighbor what it was and he said, 'Those are the NazgÃl. Once they were human, now they are IBM's lawyers.'"

Re:Stop the madness

[Red Flayer]

Emphasis mine:

the new coalition Monotoromart is now hunting down and killing any cuddly, lovable, but otherwise adorably indignant animals in an effort to minimize "market confusion".

You missed one of the constituent companies... Toro lawnmowers.

Their methods of hunting down and killing the offending cuties has some people upset, but nonetheless is picking up sponsors for televised "kitty rodeos". Word is that Ford Motor Company has signed on to sponsor one of the mowers in next year's "Kitten Splittin' Cage Match" to be broadcast on pay-per-view.

Their independent claims

[dtmos]

What matters isn't what the abstract says, it's what the claims, especially the independent claims, say. Here are the two independent claims in this patent, formatted for improved clarity (I hope). They basically say the same thing, except that the first is a "method" claim, claiming a method for doing something (in this case, "creating a document in XML in a computing device that is understandable by many applications"), while the second is an "apparatus" claim, claiming an apparatus (in this case, "a computer-readable storage medium having computer-executable instructions for interacting with a document") that performs a function:

Claim 1. A method for creating a document in XML ("Extensible Markup Language") in a computing device that is understandable by many applications, comprising:

accessing a published XSD ("XML Schema Definition") in said computing device, wherein the XSD defines rules relating to the XML file format for documents associated with an application having a rich set of features;

determining an element to create in an XML file in said computing device, wherein the element is selected from a set of elements, including:
a style element;
a hints element that includes information to assist an external application in displaying text of the of the document;
a bookmark element; wherein the bookmark element includes an identifier attribute that associates a start bookmark with an end bookmark element wherein two bookmark elements are used in book marking a portion of the document; wherein each of the two bookmark elements include an opening tag and an ending tag;
a document properties element;
a text element that contains text of the document; wherein all of the text of the document is stored within text elements such that only the text of the document is contained between start text tags and end text tags; wherein there are no intervening tags between each of the start text tags and each of the corresponding end text tags and wherein each of the start text tags do not include formatting information for the text between each of the start text tags and the end text tags;
a text run element that includes the formatting information for the text within text elements;
a font element;
a formatting element;
a section element;
a table element;
an outline element;
and a proofing element;

creating the document including the element in said computing device;

and storing the document in said computing device.

Claim 12. A computer-readable storage medium having computer-executable instructions for interacting with a document, comprising:

interpreting a published XSD (Extensible Markup Language (XML) Schema Definition), wherein the XSD defines rules relating to the XML file format for documents associated with an application having a rich set of features;

and creating an element in an XML file, wherein the element is selected from a set of elements, including:
a style element;
a hints element that is interpreted according to a hints sch

Re:Their independent claims

[Damion]

In particular, it's worth noting that the entire case file for all issued patents is publicly available (http://portal.uspto.gov/external/portal/pair). For this patent, you can see exactly what the Examiner thought made the patent allowable over the prior art.

 

Go to the Public PAIR website, put in the patent number, and then click on the "Image File Wrapper" tab. The document you're looking for is the Notice of Allowance. In this particular case, this is what the Examiner thought was allowable over the prior art:

 

"Regarding independent claims 32 and 43 the prior art of record fails to disclose or suggest the combination of claimed provisions of:

 

a bookmark element; wherein the bookmark element includes an identifier attribute that associates a start bookmark with an end bookmark element wherein two bookmark elements are used in book marking a portion of the document; wherein each of the two bookmark elements include an opening tag and an ending tag;

 

a document properties element;

 

a text element that contains text of the document; wherein all of the text of the document is stored within text elements such that only the text of the document is contained between start text tags and end text tags; wherein there are no intervening tags between each of the start text tags and each of the corresponding end text tags and wherein each of the start text tags do not include formatting information for the text between each of the start text tags and the end text tags;

 

a text run element that includes the formatting information for the text within text elements;"

 

A quick glance tells me the patent was rejected three times, so the enterprising individual can easily read the rejections and Microsoft's responses. If you think you can find some references that cover all of those elements, and you've got some cash handy, you can file what's called an "Ex Parte Reexamination" that will put the patent back in question.

Re:Their independent claims

[lesswithmore]

I'm an electrical engineer that's been working as a patent engineer for a while. What you said is correct, this claim is too restrictive for this patent to have any real value. Each and every element in the claim would have to be present for another "invention" to infringe. And in that case, damages are awarded based on a % of revenue that the infringement contributed to. In other words, much extra $ the infringer made by adding an infringing feature to a product is a basis for determining damages. WIth this claim, you'd be lucky to get a few thousand dollars, which buys you about a day's worth of an Ivy League educated lawyer's time :)

How is any of this new?

[FranTaylor]

XML already provides the ability to ignore things that are not understood.

My head just hurts trying to think of how one could consider this patentable.

Re:How is any of this new?

[rewt66]

Because it's using XML to try to help an app that doesn't understand the new element to figure out what to do with it, rather than just ignore it (as happens by default under XML, as you pointed out).

Re:How is any of this new?

[m.ducharme]

Then maybe the real story here is how Microsoft has extended XML to include non-standard features, which they can implement in their own software while restricting third parties from implementing the same features...

Re:How is any of this new?

[Jamie Lokier]

Since the patent cites prior art things which also have that ability, it's clear that the patent is not as simple as "ability to ignore things that are not understood".

Your head hurts because you're imagining a different patent than the actual one.

Re:How is any of this new?

[julesh]

Then maybe the real story here is how Microsoft has extended XML to include non-standard features, which they can implement in their own software while restricting third parties from implementing the same features...

Isn't this basically the point of patents? To give inventors monopolies on their inventions for a limited time?

Re:How is any of this new?

[hacker]

"Then maybe the real story here is how Microsoft has extended XML to include non-standard features, which they can implement in their own software while restricting third parties from implementing the same features..."

Is XML patented? No.

Is HTML patented? No.

Then why should an "extension" written in the same language, be patentable? Can I add some tags to HTML5, and patent it as HTML6? No.

As with most things coming out of the USPTO these days, this too... is comical.

Re:How is any of this new?

[greed]

The problem with patenting a word processor file is, it's not their words.

There's a patent on my kitchen faucet, but the water that comes out of it isn't affected by that.

The way the USPTO reads software patents, also, makes things weird. With a physical object, if you achieve the same result by a different method, it is non-infringing. But with a software process, if you achieve the same result by a different method, it IS infringing. The fact that that is possible should invalidate the original patent, rather than result in an infringement.

(In the post-In Re Bilsky days, I'm not sure how much of that has gone away, and if Microsoft's patent now isn't useless because of it.)

Re:How is any of this new?

[shutdown -p now]

Then maybe the real story here is how Microsoft has extended XML to include non-standard features

XML is a generic markup format. What the hell is a "non-standard feature" in XML?

Or do you mean any particular application of XML (say, ODF)?

Obvious

[Anonymous Coward]

Any sufficiently obvious technology is indistinguishable from innovation.

Now that they've won the patent lottery...

[Lorien_the_first_one]

I'd say that Microsoft looks a lot like this. What else is there to say?

Marc0WNi

[Scrameustache]

But it still costs a fortune to get it challenged. That is the real problem. It is an armsrace and the one with the biggest pocket wins. I wonder when this cold war bubble will burst.

Why don't you ask Nicola Tesla...

My next patent

[stuntpope]

I'm patenting complaining about Microsoft using XML. I'll make a fortune.

Re:My next patent

[cenc]

I'll patent the patenting of complaining about MS using XML. I'll make an even bigger fortune.

Re:My next patent

[martin-boundary]

-:1: parser error : Start tag expected, '<' not found
I'm patenting complaining about Microsoft using XML. I'll make a fortune.
^

I'm sorry, but your sample XML complaint about Microsoft doesn't validate.

Patent rejected. Next!

Re:My next patent

[stuntpope]

Well, I didn't submit the patent application in XML, that's already been patented!

Think about it ...

[LaughingCoder]

Patent Office, IRS, Post Office, Department of Motor Vehicles, Social Security, Department of Homeland Security, FEMA ...

Now, who out there wants to add government run health care to that list?

Re:Think about it ...

[0ld_d0g]

You mean medicare? :p

-

public option is just an option. its in no way free; you still have to pay premiums. Also, its not guaranteed to be successful. For e.g. doctors may not like the rates and wont sign up or govt might do a crappy job and it ends up not working. In which case you can switch back to whatever you were using.

What youre probably complaining about is the universal health care part which is subsidized by taxpayers. that has nothing to do whatsoever with the public option. even if you choose not to insure them, you are going to end up paying for them anyway when they show up needing expensive life saving treatment in the emergency room.

Re:Think about it ...

[LaughingCoder]

We all know that medicare and medicaid reimbursement rates are kept artificially low, which forces the rest of us with "private" care to subsidize them. Adding a public option, which, while not free, will also be heavily subsidized by the taxpayer, will further limit revenues received by the healthcare providers, which will then further increase the pressure on the private segment. This, in turn, will force companies to drop health coverage because their costs will skyrocket (subsidizing medicare, medicaid and Obamacare). When that happens, the pressure on the remaining private companies will grow evermore, with more and more companies tossing in the towel, until the entire system is a public system. That is the plan.

After the above plays out, expect *big-time tax increases* to pay for it all. Since private industry will no longer be subsidizing it, the money will have to come from the taxpayers, and believe me, the "rich" can't pay for all of it - the middle class is going to get socked. We should also expect rationing (adding 50 million people to the system will NOT increase access for the 280 million who already have health insurance), and lower quality care because if the government ultimately determines how much doctors and nurses get paid, the "best and brightest" will go into other more lucrative fields like politics.

Just speeding the end of Current patent laws

[cenc]

I think this is wonderful. The more absurd no limits patents that are issued, the sooner it will reach the proper critical mass (mess) we need for the whole patent system to properly implode on itself. At some point it is going to become obvious that better than 50% of the patents are invalid for one reason or another, the other 50% where just useless; and, the whole mess is just holding back innovation and stifling profits. Even MS might wake up one morning and discover that they the patent system is costing them too much money and waisting too much of their resources, and no idiot in their right mind would actually pay them for most of their patent portfolio.

Re:Just speeding the end of Current patent laws

[wizkid]

50% of the patents are invalid for one reason or another, the other 50% where just useless;

Your numbers are wrong. 50% of the patents are invalid, and 49% are useless. The other 1% are not software patents. :)

Just goes to show you

[nurb432]

That anything can be bought.

Re:Just goes to show you

[Anonymous Coward]

suck it up prick.

Plenty of Open Standards are Patent Encumbered

[Anonymous Coward]

Like, say, 99% of the audio and video on the web. MpegLA holds patents for most of the key concepts in mpeg and h264 video, and I think Frahenhoffer institute or someone has the mp3 ones. Sad, but true.

I'm about to be a titan of industry

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm going to patent the business model of collecting obvious and prior art patents and then suing people that violate them. I'm going to be a patent troll troll.

Patent examiners can't generalize.

[Anonymous Coward]

Patent examiners aren't allowed to generalize. I remember reading that a claim for putting a "plurality" of book pages online in a retrievable format (what good would an irretrievable format be?) was somehow different from putting up only one page (the cover), which had already been patented or something by Amazon.

So Mr. Harris got his "invention" patented after all.

The problem is that there are no clear tests for "obvious" so they seem to default to "exactly this hasn't been patented before."

Then you have to spend a million dollars or two if you want to fight it out in court to prove that their claims are absurd in front of a Texas jury, thanks to the wonders of forum shopping. (And no, you still can't get away. These days they just sue a local company as well as everyone else to pin down Marshall Texas or somewhere else in the district as the forum.)

Re:Patent examiners can't generalize.

[setagllib]

There is a theoretically robust test against obviousness, and it's that if basically any reasonably competent worker in the industry could have come up with the same idea, then it's not supposed to be patentable. This is completely useless in practice because the patent examiners are very far from being competent workers in the industry, /especially/ in our industry, and so, to them, anything more sophisticated than a checkbox seems like game-changing innovation.

Re:Patent examiners can't generalize.

[Anonymous Coward]

The reality couldn't be further from what you described. Particularly after KSR, examiners have gotten even further and further away from an actual obviousness standard, and throw random mishmashes of references together claiming that somehow, someone, would think to put these things together.

"Exactly this hasn't been patented before" is the standard under  102 (except it's published or disclosed, not merely patented ...). The standard under  103 is more along the lines of, if someone skilled in the art had these particular references in front of them, would they somehow conceive of doing exactly what this claim says?

The "plurality" vs. single page situation you suggest sounds either rather that you misunderstood what happened or the examiner wasn't on his game. Any examiner worth his salt (and most are far smarter than the average Slashdotter, and, contra GGGGP, are bigger computer geeks than you think) would easily make the argument that if you can do it once, you can repeat the process.

You may want to take a look at what goes on yourself, rather than relying on characterizations of the patent process from people with no clue.

Re:Patent examiners can't generalize.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, some part of me still thinks they ought to have "obviousness juries" of skilled techies who have never heard of the patent before who are asked to list all the obvious ways of solving the problem the patented thing allegedly solves.

But I don't think that's very easy to set up.

Also, they can't just have the examiners do it, because they figure that everything is obvious in hindsight.

Re:Patent examiners can't generalize.

[ZachPruckowski]

Patent examiners don't generalize, but judges and juries and lawyers do. That's actually the problem - patents are awarded based on whether the strictest construction of the claims is a legitimate invention, but frequently litigated on the loosest possible construction. That's how a patent for a mix-tape kiosk winds up applying to half the internet.

Re:Patent examiners can't generalize.

[tsa]

Better yet: using a microphone to listen if the user is whistling with the song, and then use the Internet to automatically sue the user for copyright infringement.

Re:Patent examiners can't generalize.

[DragonWriter]

There is a theoretically robust test against obviousness, and it's that if basically any reasonably competent worker in the industry could have come up with the same idea, then it's not supposed to be patentable.

This is not a "theoretically robust test". Its a highly subjective one, because there is no way to really test it (you can't gather all the actual -- much less all the potential -- reasonably competent workers in the field and see if they would come up with that as one of the solutions to the same problem), even if "reasonably competent" was itself an objective standard, which its not.

Great arguments against patents...

[Lorien_the_first_one]

You might enjoy reading this, too. BTW, if you can recommend another book along the same lines, I'm interested in reading it.

Re:Great arguments against patents...

[Co0Ps]

Thanks, that looks intresting. I don't read many books on this subject but I could recommend the swedish pirate partys reference list that has many good articles on patents since they want to reform and/or possible abolish patents. About 50% is in english and they provide a original source link at the bottom.

Re:Stop the madness

[grub]

Whoa, Steve, cool down. Throw a couple of chairs and chill out.

.

IANAL

[Eskarel]

, but I did RTFP, and I'm not entirely clear on what they're actually patenting and whether what they're patenting and what the sumbitterclaims they're patenting are actually the same thing.

Patenting what the submitter claims they're patenting, seems too ludicrous even for the USPTO, and there's a lot of things in the patent which don't make much sense if that's actually what's being patented. I would appreciate it if someone with more knowledge of patents could take a look at this thing and confirm what they're actually patenting.

Re:IANAL

[kimvette]

Patenting what the submitter claims they're patenting, seems too ludicrous even for the USPTO[...]

Are you sure about that?

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn2178-boy-takes-swing-at-us-patents.html

Re:IANAL

[Anonymous Coward]

Surely you need someone more skilled in the art of programming to look at it and understand it enough to make a working model (implementation). If they can't then surely MS have not lived up to the disclosing the details of the invention and so the patent should NOT be valid as that is surely part of the agreement of the USPTO granting a short time monopoly.

Re:IANAL

[Eskarel]

Not especially, whatever you may think, a patent is a legal document, not a technical one. Thing is there's a few things in there which indicate something more than just an xml document. For instance there's a number of references to something that sounds like implying the data format from the document itself. Now that could just be xml, or they could be patenting something to do with the self description.

It could also be a patent on a specific format, which might also be alright.

It just seems too strange that even the patent office could grant a patent based on the information provided if it's for what the submitter claims. The whole claim is full of examples of prior art as well as descriptions for why xml is designed for this specific purpose.

AND another example of why Microsoftware has bugs

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Basically, the invention here is the inclusion of information that lets third-party programs better understand what to do with the format. You can imagine, for example, if HTML included something like this. The del ('strikethrough') tag might be written:

That code would allow a program that did not natively understand the tag to implement a simple version of it. The idea is to allow new features to be introduced into the format while enabling older versions of the software to use them without updating their code. The necessary code comes with the file.

In other words, it's a way to include executable code in one part of the file, and a call to it in another.

Presuming your characterization is correct, what Microsoft patented is a particular way to build an unpatchable security hole into an XML editor. B-)

I have just filed

[ameline]

I have just filed a provisional patent for providing porn in xml format. I will soon own the entire internet! MWAHAHAHAHA!

Re:I have just filed

[BatGnat]

Hope you called it XXXML...;-)

Re:I have just filed

[ameline]

It's almost the weekend -- I'll have to file for trademark on that tomorrow. :-)

Thank you.
/ For royalty, you get nothing :-) (By reading this post you accept these licensing terms)

Re:Stop the madness

[jd2112]

This just in: Sony has filed no less than 50 patents on robot kittens.

I have just filed (part 2)

[BatGnat]

I have just filed I have just filed a provisional patent for looking at the computer from a sitting down position.

ALL SHALL KNEEL (or stand) BEFORE ME !!!!! HA HA HA ......

Re:I have just filed (part 2)

[FunPika]

Won't take long for this one to be challenged probably.

not quite true

[ProfBooty]

Incorrect on both counts.

You need a degree in science or engineering to be an examiner, the examining corps has been hiring over 1200 examiners a year and fee diversion has ended.

The main problems for examiners has been lack of time (has not changed since 1976), a lack of an easy way to text search non-patent literature, increased number of claims, increased claim length, longer specifications, and more clerical tasks. Both the patent bar and the examiner unions want more time for examiners. Examiners do the best they can in the ~22 hours they have allocated for a case.

We will see what changes if Kappos (former head of IBM's IP dept) is approved by congress and takes over leadership of the USPTO.

Re:not quite true

[Dishevel]

22 hours and they still cant just google "XML"?

Re:Stop the madness

[ozmanjusri]

You should be modded to oblivion for suggesting that free and open discussion could be anti-Microsoft.

examiners make decent money

[ProfBooty]

Examiners make pretty decent money. Right now they are getting four years at $5,000-$10,000 a year hiring bonuses. You typically can start as a GS-7/9 with 50-77k and hit over $100,000 a year in less than 4 years before overtime (you can make up to $153k a year) and bonuses.

Not bad to hit mid $100's in your mid-late 20's. Plus until recently you could go to law school for free, grad school for free, tons of vacation, a pension etc. they do have to offer high pay/benefits as turnover is high.

I thought XML was

[shis-ka-bob]

eXclusively Microsoft's Language.

Like the "alt" tag?

[argent]

That code would allow a program that did not natively understand the tag to implement a simple version of it.

You mean like <img src="..." alt="Text"> or <noframes>?

FUCK TIM BRAY!

[Anonymous Coward]

and the HORSE he rode in on

Microsoft Deserves the Patent

[tjstork]

The innovative thing is that they got OLE In Place Editing to save its streams to an XML document. It's actually may be something of a hack, but most notably, unlike Excel, you really can round trip a Word 2003 document with nested OLE in Place spreadsheets and other stuff and it works. I just created a Word 2003 document, created an Excel sheet inside of it, confirmed it by doing Excel stuff and using Excel menus in Word, saved the whole shebang as Xml, and I was frankly pretty pleased that it loaded it up again.

The thing is, I don't know that Open Office ever really supported OLE In Place Editing on Windows and I would bet probably not because OLE 2.0 is a set of COM libraries and I don't see such how they'd port it over to other platforms. That's a big job. In fact, I really can't think of any other Word processor besides Word that can be an OLE 2 host... seems like nobody else did the Scribble App that happened to be writing word processors....

In any case, so yeah, Word is way more powerful than anybody else when it comes to round tripping Xml, and its easy to demonstrate. Everybody else could at best only save a version, but, Microsoft can round trip the active nature of the content, and that is pretty cool, new, and innovative.

Yikes

[mmaniaci]

I use XML to wrap oil and gas pipeline data and then display it as a type of document. Am I going to get sued by Microsoft? Am I a personal example of prior art? We (the people I work with) have been doing this for over 10 years.

Re:Yikes

[MightyMartian]

I'm thinking anybody that uses inline CSS should probably expect a knock on the door from Microsoft demanding licensing fees, your firstborn, or perhaps a romantic evening with Steve "Mr. Patent Guy" Ballmer.

Re:Yikes

[michael_cain]

I use XML to wrap oil and gas pipeline data and then display it as a type of document. Am I going to get sued by Microsoft? Am I a personal example of prior art?

No, and no. Microsoft's patent covers representation of certain data related to word processing. As you have wrapped something quite different in your document, you do not infringe on their patent nor is your application prior art for wrapping the kind of data covered by the MS patent.

After reading the claims, this strikes me as a classic "defensive" patent. MS is using XML in a particular way for something critical to their products (help files?) and since that particular use might be patentable, took steps to insure that no one else was going to get a patent for it and then extort money from MS. A company I worked for obtained patents on a couple of things I had developed with exactly this intent -- not to stop other people from using it, but to keep other people from stopping us from using it.

anger building... fury rising!!!

[cyberbill79]

I am speechless... How much dumber can these Software Patents get?

Software Engineer: "Hey look, I made this window open by using Ctrl-O. Neat huh?"
Manager/Lawyer/CFO/CEO: "Write it up! We'll corner the market on opening any windows! They'll be stuck! HA! Brilliant!"
Software Engineer: "What have I done... Oh well, where's the sysadmins? I must frag."

Software patents do not make sense in our current system. We crave competition, we need it. You build a brilliant program, I'll find someone who will one-up you. Don't worry, you get to fight back. Just make your program better/stronger/faster. That's how it works here.

First rule of 'Software Club': You don't fucking patent 'Software Club'.

[throws mic on floor]

Peace!

Re:anger building... fury rising!!!

[selven]

[throws mic on floor]

Sorry, can't do that, it's too similar to an existing patent owned by Steve Ballmer.

Re:Stop the madness

[hdparm]

Fuck you and fuck Microsoft. This is about stupidity of the USPTO.

On the other hand, maybe it isn't stupidity. Lots of dough at Redmond to throw around.

IIRC

[Anonymous Coward]

this was outsourced to India. That would explain why they have really gone downhill.

Re:Stop the madness

[Tubal-Cain]

Red Hat love patents too.

I'll just point you here.

Might as well call it XMSL

[Cur8or]

at this rate.

ah, flagrant moneygrabs.

[nimbius]

covenants from a multi billion dollar megacorp famous for breaking all the rules? excuse me i snicker a bit.

id say the fact they got the copyright despite their quagmire with ODF is proof enough their intent.

just remember, if you kill all the rich people, who will remain to remind you how exciting and fun capitalism is?

Re:ah, flagrant moneygrabs.

[Anonymous Coward]

just shut up bitch. if it weren't for rich people you wouldn't be sitting in front of a computer right now.

I own everything you think, do, say, and are.

[Anonymous Coward]

Pay me.

wait, they're claiming to patent AI?

[Anonymous Coward]

> in a computing device that is understandable by many applications

So, they're patenting ... applications that can understand computing devices?

Patenting file formats prevents compatibility?

[Anonymous Coward]

Presumably, now that they have very thoroughly patented the OOXML file format, any software that has the ability to read or write that format will need a patent licence from Microsoft?

What effect will this have on Openoffice?

So LUG's are shelter for battered windows users?

[Anonymous Coward]

You too can break free of this abuse. You just have to tell yourself that you deserve better. That happiness is your right.

Just say NO. Enough is enough.

You can find LUG in your area, and call them anonymous for advice on how best to break free from this cycle of abuse and gain control back of your own life.

If you know someone who is being abused by MS, do not look the other way, but lend a hand. All it takes sometimes is a live-cd on a usb-stick to turn someone's life around.

Re:Stop the madness

[Anonymous Coward]

How the hell is that related to the Parent?

There goes the USPTO website..

[Anonymous Coward]

US patent office website is Slashdotted :)

Re:There goes the USPTO website..

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Still better than if US Slashdot website were patented, don't you think?

Ummm hang on ...

[Mick R]

Hasn't OpenOffice.org been using exactly this system now for YEARS??? Just how many million pieces of prior art does it take to make the granting of these mindless patents obviously corrupt?

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

UMMM, hey wait...

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't this what markup languages are for?
Next up in the news, Microsoft sues Professor Emeritus Donald Knuth, has him stripped of his tenure and publicly flogged for his willful violation of Microsoft's innovative XML patent. All users of his illegal and immoral free software TeX and METAFONT will be billed ONE MILLION DOLLARS for DCMA violations

That's silly

[RalphSouth]

That's it! I am patenting use of letters in recognizable patterns to represent spoken language!

Actually...

[ivoras]

OpenOffice (as StarOffice way back) reinvented the whole "OLE 2" thing to support in-place editing on multiple platforms, which of course wasn't (I don't know about now) compatible with MS Office's implementation.

Re:Actually...

[tjstork]

OpenOffice (as StarOffice way back) reinvented the whole "OLE 2" thing to support in-place editing on multiple platforms, which of course wasn't (I don't know about now) compatible with MS Office's implementation

Yeah but without the tools to support it, its a moot point. When MS committed to OLE 2.0, they put their Office to use it, Visual C++ to produce components... they put the company behind it. You had products that used it, an operating system that shipped the DLLS to implement. And of course they had Microsoft press cranking out books about it.

Of course, this is all about UNO vs COM. Open Office builds itself on top of UNO and it calls it a competitor to COM, so much so, that it seems Windows machines blessed with an Open Office installation will have two registries - one for Uno and one for COM. That's just lovely. Of course UNO is about a decade's worth of bloody experience behind where COM is, and so all the good stuff that exists today to support COM isn't out there for UNO...

And, with all of that, there doesn't seem to be an OLE like library on top of UNO. I don't see any examples of how to make my application, running as a separate process, appear inside of an Open Office application. I mean, come on, where's SCRIBBLE for UNO....?

.fodf (n/t)

[Anonymous Coward]

One of the claims in this patent is that everything is stored in a single XML document. That is not true of ODF. An ODF file is the result of zipping up a bunch of files including not only XML files but various other things, such as image files.

I call the rest

[blackjackshellac]

I am submitting a patent to cover every xml data schema other than those patents already held by Microsoft.

Insane.

It's the examiners' attitudes

[Anonymous Coward]

Anonymous coward here. I had the distinct displeasure of serving as a consultant to the USPTO. I spent three miserable days giving the computer-type examiners short courses on a number of topics concerned with modern computing. I think there were a total of four questions in all the time I was there. Nobody showed any curiosity or enthusiasm. When I asked questions I would usually not get any replies, and would have to call on somebody, just like third grade.

Power Behind the Throne

[fast turtle]

is the position that Microsoft wants.

Will someone please send the USPO a /. invite?

[awpoopy]

Let's set them up with a special section called Patent Office Ask Slashdot Submissions (POASS).
Funny acronym aside - it might be a good idea.
We on slashdot seem to know more about prior art than the USPO or the lawyers submitting the patent requests.
Let the acronym race begin...

Wow!

[Anonymous Coward]

OK, I did not invent the wheel but I think I'll patent the use of the wheel on any machine that uses four of them in order to fascilitate motion. How on earth did they get a patent on what every programmer has been using XML for since it was released?! Open offic used XML long before microsoft switched to docx. I've been doing the same trick at my office as well. This just proves software should not be subject to patents. It is too nebulous and abstract to be governed by the same rules as physical devices.

Yet another pointless story

[harlows_monkeys]

Like nearly every patent story on Slashdot, this one is worthless because the submitter didn't look at the claims.