Anyone who knows me at all knows that I have very little time for Microsoft. I do not think that they know how to let others play with them - or how to play with others. That said, a number of their products have been rather good and some are extremely clever. A number of others are complete and utter dross, but that is another story.
Then something like this comes up, where a company attacks the biggest target they can find, with a weapon of extremely dubious nature, and has a technical hit awarded to them - even though they not only hit the 'target', but the entire country.
The short form is that a rather cutely named company (i4i - say it out loud, you'll get it), has managed to convince the US Patent Office to grant a patent to them for using XML in word processing for templates. And managed to convince a judge that MS are in breach of this, and that they therefore owe i4i gobs of money and have to stop selling Word. The same injunction could be raised against almost every other modern word processor as well. Not to mention at least two published standards.
Except that XML has been used for that purpose for a long time, and, in any event, the point of XML is to make template-able documents. ZD Net have a good commentary on this.
This leaves me in the situation of having to support MS's position. They have, in this case, done nothing wrong. So I hope MS appeal, and win, and appeal the patent, and get it overturned. Mind you I also hope the recent XML in word processing patent awarded TO MS is likewise appealed and overturned.
In the meantime, good luck on this one, Microsoft. Just remember that if you play nice with others, and let them play nice with you, this is all a lot less likely, and you will have a lot more allies. Push the rules, and things like this become more common, because other people will simply think "Well, they did it first..."
I suppose it is sort of like the legal version of the broken window effect.
Lympago Forums › Blogs, etc › Rob's Burblings › In defense of the undefendable... (Moderators: rdm)
Author
In defense of the undefendable...
Administrator
Logged
Locked Board