Posted on 08/17/2009 1:23:22 PM PDT by ShadowAce
Now, I am not a lawyer. But, I've been reporting on IP (intellectual property) law issues for years now, so I know something about how these issues are resolved, and when I see that one attorney thinks there's an "easy technical work-around" for Microsoft's patent violation in Word, my alarm bells go off. There is no easy fix here, and, short of waving the white-flag, Microsoft may very well have to stop selling Word, and thus Microsoft Office, this fall.
Here's why the "easy" solutions really don't work.
First, there's the suggestion from the attorney that "All Microsoft has to do is disable the custom XML feature, which should be pretty easy to do, then give that a different SKU number from what's been sold so it's easy to distinguish the two versions." Oh yeah, that's easy.
The custom feature, described by patent # 5787449, covers a fast way of saving XML (eXtended Markup Language) documents. Microsoft uses it to save documents in Word 2003's default .DOCX and Word 2007's default Open XML format. If you think for one second that changing something so fundamental as how documents are saved and their formats is easy, you've never done any programming at all. Even if you could magically change that, there are endless processes in Word that would need to be modified to deal with the new way of saving and reading documents.
That leads me to my next point. Let's say a miracle happens, and Microsoft does make the changes in Word and it actually works. What about all those billions of documents that are already in the old format styles? What about the hundreds of millions of users still using the older versions of Office?
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.computerworld.com ...
How does someone claim to own XML or HTML ??
Can I claim to own the sky??
I see the decision being overturned. XML has been around for years, I fail to see the judge’s logic that using it to save files now is any more of a violation than it was before.
Not the entire specification.
Even if SAVING the files in the FAST method that is patented, there seems to be no restriction on READING the files, so the author’s question about all the legacy users out there seems moot.
I still don’t see how some of that stuff can be patented
I admit, though--IANAL, so whatever I say/think has no weight on this.
Yeah--that's a whole 'nother question. :)
Without exposing too much of what I do, I am aware that companies will find out how some very complex things work in our current electronics/technical infrastructure, then patent it, then send letters to all the companies that do things that way and demand a “reasonable” settlement and payment system to be allowed to do things the way they do them. The key is to make the dollar amount small enough for the company to simply capitulate.
It is amazing just how specific the patent can be.
One can get quite rich doing this.
MS will file an appeal claiming that Bill Gates patented the Alphabet in 1996 while we were not looking...
The Wright brothers tried to patent flying.
;)
I am all in favor of Intellectual Property Rights but this sounds so stupid that it could destroy the meaning of IP. Imagine if Microsoft made IE unable to recognize XML in response? Would that be okay, wouldn’t want to step on their patent now.
Maybe a warning should pop-up before opening an XML site. “Warning this site uses XML, visiting it could leave you open for a patent lawsuit.” Open? Yes No
That’s the part about the article I didn’t understand. If Microsoft changes the algoritm, it doesn’t obsolete any of the existing DOCX documents. The issue is with the PROCESS (the way it’s done), not the PRODUCT (the document, itself, stored in an XML format)....
hh
They might have gotten away with it later
>>They might have gotten away with it later<<
I tend to agree.
I don't think DOCX became the default Word file format till the 2007 release. I used 2003 for a couple of years before upgrading recently to '97, and I'm almost certain it used the DOC format.
I caught that, too. Try saving in Word 2003 format. I bet it’ll say .DOC
Can’t. I upgraded to ‘97. It doesn’t know from 2003.
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