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Microsoft Applies to Patent RSS in Vista
Posted by
Zonk
on Sat Dec 23, 2006 02:38 PM
from the don't-jump-the-rails-just-yet dept.
from the don't-jump-the-rails-just-yet dept.
Cyvros wrote in with a link to Wired's Monkey Bites blog, which is featuring a post on Microsoft applying for a patent on RSS. As the article points out, this isn't as crazy as it seems at first blush. From the wording of the application, post author Scott Gilbertson interprets their move as a patent on RSS only within Vista and IE7. From the article: "The big mystery is what Microsoft is planning to do with the patents if they are awarded them. The sad state of patent affairs in the United States has led to several cases of Microsoft being sued for technologies they did arguably invent simply because some else owned a generic patent on them. Of course we have no way of knowing how Microsoft intends to use these patents if they are awarded them. They could represent a defensive move, but they could be offensive as well -- [self-described RSS inventor Dave] Winer may end up being correct. It would be nice to see Microsoft release some information on what they plan to do with these patents, but for now we'll just have to wait and see whether the US Patent and Trademark Office grants them."
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Wheel (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Wheel (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
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Re:Wheel (Score:5, Funny)
That would save the trouble of having to re-invent it.
Parent
Linux ? (Score:3, Insightful)
Winer claims to have invented RSS.... (Score:5, Funny)
Aw, but... but..... (Score:5, Insightful)
Why would they turn around and piss everyone off?
WHY??
Oh wait... it's MS. Nevermind. Business as usual.
so hey.. does this mean Firefox will have to exclude that feature in upcoming Vista builds?
I can see it now:
#ifndef _MS_VISTA_
Links.AddLiveBookmark();
#endif
Oh Yeah?! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Oh Yeah?! (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Who has Microsoft actually sued (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Who has Microsoft actually sued (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
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Well, of course they didn't sue because desisted. It seems clear to me that the polite request would have a lawsuit if he had not. So the difference is not important.
Free software developers don't have huge amounts of money to defend against lawsuits, so of course patent issues will heavily tend to them desisting before an actual trial is started. That is another reason why patents are so destructive to free software - maybe they
Re:Who has Microsoft actually sued (Score:4, Informative)
Why make this a general debate about Microsoft's patents (or patents in general)? The current patent is very specific, and isn't accurately summarized in TFA anyhow, so debate here may be skewed. The actual patent states specifically, in the "Background" section:
RSS, which stands for Really Simple Syndication, is one type of web content syndication format
i.e. Microsoft is NOT patenting RSS, which is one possible misconception. Secondly, the patent mentions various problems with RSS (various file formats, lack of a single unified reader for the entire desktop), which they intend to fix. So, they may be looking to patent a system that uses RSS or improves it; presumably this would run on Vista, but to say they are "patenting RSS in Vista" seems odd.
Parent
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I'm afraid your point does nothing but weaken any justification Microsoft might have had in applying for an RSS-related patent.
you're right (Score:2)
Re:Who has Microsoft actually sued (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
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IBM would never sue people or use patents again small companies!
,br> (Yes this was ment as a joke)
Re:Who has Microsoft actually sued (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
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Pay your mortgage on time and you won't have to worry about being evicted. If you can't afford to pay your mortgage on time, it doesn't matter whether or not you have a nice mortgage broker who "understands you" or a big bank who looks at you as just so much $$$,
Re:they don't have to (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Patents are Never Defensive (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Tech A by company A
Tech B by company B
Now, suppose both companies use both technologies.
Case 1: A has patented, B has released in the wild. A sues B for tech A. B can't do anything.
Case 2: A has patented, B has patented too. A sues B for tech A. B asks them to drop the lawsuit or they'll sue for use of B.
Quite frankly, I've never seen MS abuse any of their patents.
Further clarification (Score:2)
In case 1: A has patented, B has released in the wild. A sues B for tech A. B can't do anything.
What the parent proposes is that B publish the details of tech B. This prevents A from getting a patent on tech B, true, so there is the slight improvement that A can't sue for both tech A and B.
But it has no effect on the patent for tech A.
So getting a patent on tech B is a defensive move.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
That is not patent for RSS (Score:5, Informative)
I'd mod the main article as -1: Troll if I could. It's just anti-microsoft FUD.
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Wow, just like rss2email [infogami.com]!
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It's just providing a system-wide API for syndicated content, which might be any source, RSS only being one. Not saying it's patentable, of course, just that it is not intended to cover RSS itself.
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Something like that but it is definitely NOT a patent application for RSS itself, the main article is ignorant and written by someone really stupid.
Thank you. Nothing in that patent application says MSFT is making a claim on RSS.
Sounds like an sort of ODBC for RSS (Score:2, Informative)
Sounds like the proprietary extension of public standards thingy they've been doing for a while. A good or b
Why the hullabaloo? (Score:2, Insightful)
MS is patenting their implementation of RSS in IE. Not RSS. If you want to come up with a way of interacting with MS SQL server that is novel, you can patent it. If you want to patent a novel way of attaching a wheel to a car, you may. Remember, it doesn't have to be useful, the best way, or practical, it just has to be novel, or an improvement upon an method.
While I love RSS and all, Winer has a history of being a whiner in this matter when it comes to ATOM and RSS. Almost as bad as Reese Sellin was with
Patent Interference, Litigation, and 102(b) (Score:4, Informative)
In real patent litigation, the main way to claim invalidity is 102(b). This says that if the work was published in a printed publication, or for sale in this country, more than one year prior to the filing date, then the patent is invalid. There are other grounds for invalidity, such as 103 (obviousness), but because of bad case law, obviousness is a very slight extension to 102(b) (hopefully this will be fixed with KSR v Teleflex, currently before the US Supreme Court). This one-year bar essentially means that as long as I'm within one year of being the first to do it, and I'm the first to file for a patent for it, then I'll win as long as no previous inventors filed for a patent. (We're a first-to-invent system with some caveats; if the first inventor doesn't try to patent it, he can lose his patent rights to a later inventor).
In technology, one year is a really long time, so its important that everyone files for patents lest something "obvious" be granted, and your competitor take away all your customers by claiming that your technology infringes their patent. Its way easier to solve this problem before the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences than it is before a judge and jury who have no technical knowledge whatsoever (and probably try patent cases once in a blue moon). Sure, if you lose in district court, you can always appeal to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, but by the time the appeal is litigated, you may have lost most of your customers.
Microsoft's doing the smart thing by filing for this patent. Hopefully they'll also do the right thing by not abusing it.
Hmm, I wonder... (Score:3, Funny)
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Dude, you really ought to turn off the 5 way Dolby sound. Or at least face towards the screen.
I think I'll patent the door-knob in my house (Score:2)
Then I could sue all the manufacturers of door-knobs and lightbulbs that I use in my home.... how could they dispute my claims? They don't have a patent for door-knobs "in my home" do they? I could even manufacture a door-knob and install it in my home as proof of concept.... they'd be infringing on m
Oh, the mistery (Score:3, Funny)
The big mystery is what Microsoft is planning to do with the patents if they are awarded them.
Wow. [pause] Wow. I'll take a stab at this one. They'll use it to... mmm... patents, patents... Ah! They'll use them to prohibit some party or parties to manufacture the software which is described in the patents' claims? Can I get a golden star for this one, please? It's long overdue.
They aren't patenting RSS (Score:4, Interesting)
not Vista/IE7-specific (Score:5, Informative)
You couldn't patent "RSS within Vista/IE7" if you tried. This patent looks like it's trying to cover broadly RSS syndication, RSS aggregation, RSS feed conversion, and object-oriented libraries for working with RSS feeds. The fact that it's beating around the bush and not patenting the RSS format itself is simply patent strategy: Microsoft's lawyers are trying to "build a fence" around RSS, leaving the open core open, but patenting everything around it so that you can't use RSS without infringing on their patents.
Make no mistake: if this patent gets granted, most RSS software will be infringing.
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MSDN Blog Response (Score:3, Informative)
Microsoft PM Sean Lyndersay posted a response [msdn.com]:
Ulterior motive / cynical conspiracy theory post (Score:3, Insightful)
MS's market dominance will ensure Vista and IE7 will become the majority OS & browser rig over time this patented RSS aggregation / delivery API system will be part of it.
The patent states "the platform can acquire and organize web content, and make such content available for consumption by many different types of applications" so it would be fair to assume that over time more Windows applications will work with the feeds via this mechanism. I'm sure they'll do their utmost to make it nice and easily accessible through development tools, etc.
MS are setting themselves up as a vital link in the RSS supply chain; the toll bridge troll as it were. With sufficient install base and support by Windows applications there are lots of things Microsoft could do. This being
1. Microsoft don't own the RSS format and can't dictate how it's run. After a while of this mechanism being in place a new patented and big media friendly format could be introduced and promoted to the detriment of RSS. To the applications using the mechanism, and thus the end users, all this is transparent. MS then have a format they can control.
2. They could throw lawyers at anyone who produced a similar system for other operating systems.
3. They could add to this mechanism a way to make some feeds chargeable through a standard payment system.
Some clarification about the matter (Score:3, Interesting)
"Second of all, from my reading anyway, Microsoft is not patenting RSS, but RSS within Vista/IE7. Of course I'm not a patent lawyer, I could be wrong about that."
I am very unclear what makes the author of the blog think this ? I read the claims - and that is what counts in a patent, only - and can't find anything that points to Vista. The only technical feature the claims talk about is the feature mentioned mainly in claim 10: reading RSS by an application that generically cannot read it. That is meant with the plurality of applications in claim 1.
Therefore what the patent proposes is *not* to patent RSS, but to patent the rocket-science-like concept of getting the RSS as is (that is, again, *not* patenting it), and miraculously translate it ('API') to be used in other applications.
To me, the patent is written very clearly and rather concisely. If you now read the blog again, alas, it doesn't really hit the problem and the consequences right between the eyes.
The question are basically two:
1. For patentability, it must be made sure, that nobody has proposed to use RSS for a plurality of 'drains', applications, that do not natively 'speak' RSS, before the filing date, June 21, 2005.
2. For business reasons, one needs to evaluate the value of a patent that prevents others from using RSS for other applications; like importing it into a media player. Obviously, there is a nice stranglehold that the patent offers to the owner against competitors.
And let me add some more remarks here for Slashdot raeders:
Sure, the whole thing is probably crap. As much crap as the Slashdot title "Microsoft Applies to Patent RSS in Vista". AFAIK, there are browsers (claim 19), media players (claim 20) and e-mail (claim 18) in non-Microsoft products as well
Dave Winer is wrong just as well; there is no single attack on RSS in the patent. Anyone who just reads RSS in an RSS-reader will be able to do so in future. But beware the patent is granted (and I bet the dimwits in USPTO will grant it), and you write and sell an application that extracts RSS feeds into a set of hierachical folders (claim 8), that reside on the machine and are queried by a browser, media player or e-mail client; and you'll be tossed.
Actually, the only thing that I personally find 'clever' in this application (and I am *not* an RSS person), is the setup of these hierarchical folders. Because one can mirror RSS-content locally, any content, within topical folders, and then query these folders for content; like media player for latest on movies (and then offer the movie through your media player); browser for news (and then offer the news feeds contained in the RSS); and so forth.
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Except... (Score:2)
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