[Sigia-l] Share and share alike

[Listera]

"Donna M. Fritzsche" wrote:

> So, someone please help me out here, are they trying to indirectly
> patent the exact specification of the xml structure - by patenting
> the methods used to parse structures of that exact specification?

It's hard to say exactly without seeing it. It sounds like they are
patenting the process by which a third party app would reconstitute the
native file format of Word, Excel or InfoPath by parsing through an XML
version of it against the XML schemas.
 
> Does not seem like it would be patentable, but not surprised that
> they are trying.

I don't know about other countries but the USPO will let you patent the blue
sky if you can draw a diagram of it. Remember people laughed at the
obviousness of the "One Click" patent, but every time someone buys an iTunes
song Apple has to pay a license fee to Amazon.

This classic Microsoft "embrace and extend" move has less to do with
interoperability than access. The XML functionality was put in only the
higher-end Office packages to be begin with. Its real target is, of course,
OpenOffice, StarOffice, KOffice (and to some extent PDF). And the MO is to
spread sufficient FUD to dissuade those IT managers contemplating using
open-source document creation/management apps by raising the specter of
potential (but not tested) legal entanglements.

Imagine all the apps you could create if you had free access to all manner
of Office docs sitting out there and can parse their XML and use XSLT to
transform them into all sorts of other doc types and integrate them into
other sophisticated workflows.

But Office and Visio are "standards" anyway, right? :-)

----
Ziya

Architecture is politics.