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

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.

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?

[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: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

[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

[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

[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: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.