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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."
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.
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.