[ubuntu-uk] [Fwd: [Sussex] Judge bans Microsoft Word sales]

[Tony Pursell]

On 12 Aug 2009 at 18:20, Harry Rickards wrote:

> Thought this might be of interest...
> 
> - -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: [Sussex] Judge bans Microsoft Word sales
 
> This could be which breaks camels back on the idea of software patents
> and how very dumb it all is.
> It all down to fact that it using XML. Microsoft has be order to stop
> selling ALL copies of Word in USA.
> 
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8197990.stm
> - --

Not quite 'down to the fact that it is using XML', I think.  i4i's own press 
release says,

"The jury agreed with i4i that certain versions of Microsoft's Word 2003 
and Word 2007 products use “extensible mark up language”, or XML, 
in a way that infringes i4i’s U.S. Patent No. 5,787,449."

Note it says "... uses ... XML, in a way that infringes ..."

This is far from saying that the use of XML infringes the patent.

I don't know the ins and outs of the judgement, but the patent 
describes a method of separating the content (raw data) and tags 
(metadata) into separate files.  This is the example in the patent:-

A SGML (or XML) document:-

<Chapter>
	<Title>
	  The Secret Life of Data
	</Title>
	<Para>
	  Data is hostile. 
	</Para>
  The End
</Chapter>

is decomposed into:-

The Raw Content

The Secret Life of DataData is hostile. The End 

and:-

A Metacode Map 

Element No Element     Char Posn 
1                 <Chapter>   0 
2                 <Title>         0 
3                 </Title>        23 
4                 <Para>        23 
5                 </Para>       39 
6	       </Chapter> 46

The patent describes various advantages of doing this such as a 
person can produce a version of the document formatted in a 
particular way (requiring a change to the metadata file) even though 
they do not have permission to change the content. 

Personally, I think this is just the sort of patent we need to stop.  It 
describes a fairly simple algorithm that anyone could think up to solve 
a problem like this and wouldn't think twice about it being the subject 
of a patent.  If this sort of thing is patentable, it makes me wonder how 
many patents I have infringed in the systems I have designed over the 
years.

Tony