Microsoft Patents XML Word Processing Documents 357
theodp writes "Embrace. Extend. Patent. On Tuesday, Microsoft was granted US Patent No. 7,571,169 for its 'invention' of the Word-processing document stored in a single XML file that may be manipulated by applications that understand XML. Presumably developers are protected by Microsoft's 'covenant not to sue,' so the biggest question raised by this patent is: How in the world was it granted in light of the 40-year history of document markup languages? Next thing you know, the USPTO will give Microsoft a patent for Providing Emergency Data in XML format. Oops, too late."
Re:OpenDocument (Score:3, Informative)
This patent wouldn't seem to affect OpenDocument, since OpenDocument files are not, AFAIK, single XML files, they are JAR archives with several XML files (and others) inside.
Re:Won't hold up (Score:2, Informative)
No, ODF is a XML-based document format. An actual system would be a word processor application that utilizes the ODF file format, for example OpenOffice today.
The filing date shown on the patent is Jun 2002.
The ODF format was first discussed in December 2002, and finalized in May of 2005.
So it would seem Microsoft's patent comes before ODF.
Bad Summary (Score:5, Informative)
As is all too often the case here on Slashdot, the summary has seized upon the title of the patent, which has no legal effect whatsoever, while ignoring the actual patent claims, which are all important.
If one actually reads the claims, one sees that the main new part of the invention are the 'hint elements' contained in the XML file. The written description expands upon what hint elements mean: "hints are provided within the XML associated files providing applications that understand XML a shortcut to understanding some of the features provided by the word-processor. By using the hints, the applications do not have to know all of the specific details of the internal processing of the word-processor in order to recreate a feature."
Basically, the invention here is the inclusion of information that lets third-party programs better understand what to do with the format. You can imagine, for example, if HTML included something like this. The del ('strikethrough') tag might be written:
That code would allow a program that did not natively understand the tag to implement a simple version of it. The idea is to allow new features to be introduced into the format while enabling older versions of the software to use them without updating their code. The necessary code comes with the file.
Now, whether that's still new and nonobvious, I don't know, but it's a significantly more accurate summary of the invention than "Microsoft Patents XML Word Processing Documents."
This patent does not cover ODF (Score:5, Informative)
One of the claims in this patent is that everything is stored in a single XML document. That is not true of ODF. An ODF file is the result of zipping up a bunch of files including not only XML files but various other things, such as image files.
Re:WTF??? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Won't hold up (Score:5, Informative)
But not before SGML. The whole thing is a pile of shit, a worthless patent predated by at least a quarter century (and probably a bit longer) of markup languages. The US patent system is fucking broken, because if it worked, Microsoft would have been sent packing.
Isn't XML documented as coming from SGML? (Score:3, Informative)
And isn't SGML in part something IBM contributed to? So we can hope IBM will contribute to defending "prior art". Without actually reading the patent (I just read the patent abstract), what seems to be "unique" is the XML encoding along with the XSD style sheet; document markup languages are -really old hat- (Scribe's still my personal favorite :-). So "attacking" the patent based on the documented derivation of XML from SGML would seem to me to be a viable strategy, and many mark-up word processors of the previous millennium (including Scribe, if I remember right) had the concept of a 'document style sheet'.
This patent is -particularly stupid- based on the patent abstract. (Hey, if the President can make snap judgements without doing full research, why can't I do it, too???)
Their independent claims (Score:5, Informative)
What matters isn't what the abstract says, it's what the claims, especially the independent claims, say. Here are the two independent claims in this patent, formatted for improved clarity (I hope). They basically say the same thing, except that the first is a "method" claim, claiming a method for doing something (in this case, "creating a document in XML in a computing device that is understandable by many applications"), while the second is an "apparatus" claim, claiming an apparatus (in this case, "a computer-readable storage medium having computer-executable instructions for interacting with a document") that performs a function:
Re:Bad Summary (Score:5, Informative)
Geeze, there you go ruining everybody's fun, posting facts instead of completely uninformed complaints.
/. groupthink guidelines!
Next you'll point out that the patent cites no fewer than 77 other patents going back to 1988 as related art, or that it cites 113 other documents, including documentation for file formats of things like AbiWord, StarOffice, Wisdom++, Docbook, WorX, MML, XMill, YAWK, and so on and so forth.
Were it not for your UID, I'd have to pull out the "you must be new around here" wheeze, since you're in clear violation of
Re:Bad Summary (Score:3, Informative)
You, apparently, have missed out and not read the actual claims of the patent. This patent covers any XML document which has an XSD definition and has:
And any variation of implementation on the above. It also covers the manipulation of a file meeting that description on any computer—whether or not it has the program that generated the file installed.
The thing is... this patent can be read as covering HTML5 in its XML embedding and it completely fails the "obviousness test". How does it fail that test? Because it is, simply, plainly obvious to "one skilled in the field". A lot of the above features have been proposed for ODF and are braindead to add to ODF or any other XML format. Additionally XML is used as a format for storing data simply because it is a well defined format and easily manipulated--so easily, in fact, that there is a complete language defined for manipulation and transformation of XML.
Where it really fails is that it is neither "new" nor "novel. If Netscape had tried to patent the specific version of HTML supported by, say, Navigator 4 there would be as big a backlash. It'd be similar to someone implementing an open spec - say ECMA-262 - and claiming a patent on it as "new" and "novel" because it has a specific set of system interface functions.
Or maybe you'd like a car analogy... In this case it would be like GM filing a patent on a car because their car has a specific feature set as a standard that a company has not put out as standard options before. I hope you now understand exactly why people are rather pissed about this patent.
Re:Won't hold up (Score:4, Informative)
Samna/Lotus Ami Pro used a text-based markup language for documents. It predated Word for Windows (aka Microsoft Word).
Re:Won't hold up (Score:3, Informative)
ODF descended from the older OpenOffice/StarOffice file format ("OpenOffice.org XML"), which was already XML-based (it's very similar to ODF).
OpenOffice 1.0 used that format. It was released on May 1, 2002. Boom, obvious prior art.
Re:How is any of this new? (Score:3, Informative)
Then maybe the real story here is how Microsoft has extended XML to include non-standard features, which they can implement in their own software while restricting third parties from implementing the same features...
Re:Won't hold up (Score:3, Informative)
Framemaker
We were using there markup language to create documents back the the early 90's. Not sure when they started.
Re:Won't hold up (Score:5, Informative)
You mean XPS?
Re:Won't hold up (Score:3, Informative)
There is so much prior art for this, it's just sick. ODF, for one thing.
Heck, I even wrote an XML based text editor back when I was learning Java in 2001 or so.
All I can say is maybe I should file a patent for "Patenting inventions currently covered by patents"
Re:WTF??? (Score:3, Informative)
I see you are one of the 99%. Patent applications have a long list of claims going from general to specific. The examiner can toss out the broader claims. After that it is up to the court. The court does not get involved until there is a plaintiff, and patent cases, being civil cases, can be extremly expensive to litigate. FOSS projects are by nature too poor to play.
Re:Won't hold up (Score:5, Informative)
How about something like this?
http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2001/02/07/openoffice.html [xml.com]
Dated February 07, 2001. States that OpenOffice (its first release as open source) already uses the format and goes on to explain some of the XML used.
Re:two patent offices (Score:4, Informative)
The second patent office already exists. Its called the court system.
The problem with the funding system is: You (the accused infringer) fund that second one.
Re:Their independent claims (Score:3, Informative)
In particular, it's worth noting that the entire case file for all issued patents is publicly available (http://portal.uspto.gov/external/portal/pair). For this patent, you can see exactly what the Examiner thought made the patent allowable over the prior art.
Go to the Public PAIR website, put in the patent number, and then click on the "Image File Wrapper" tab. The document you're looking for is the Notice of Allowance. In this particular case, this is what the Examiner thought was allowable over the prior art:
"Regarding independent claims 32 and 43 the prior art of record fails to disclose or suggest the combination of claimed provisions of:
a bookmark element; wherein the bookmark element includes an identifier attribute that associates a start bookmark with an end bookmark element wherein two bookmark elements are used in book marking a portion of the document; wherein each of the two bookmark elements include an opening tag and an ending tag;
a document properties element;
a text element that contains text of the document; wherein all of the text of the document is stored within text elements such that only the text of the document is contained between start text tags and end text tags; wherein there are no intervening tags between each of the start text tags and each of the corresponding end text tags and wherein each of the start text tags do not include formatting information for the text between each of the start text tags and the end text tags;
a text run element that includes the formatting information for the text within text elements;"
A quick glance tells me the patent was rejected three times, so the enterprising individual can easily read the rejections and Microsoft's responses. If you think you can find some references that cover all of those elements, and you've got some cash handy, you can file what's called an "Ex Parte Reexamination" that will put the patent back in question.
Re:Won't hold up (Score:1, Informative)
Framemaker was created as a cheaper alternative to interleaf in the mid 80's. The following site has a version timeline.
http://www.daube.ch/docu/fmhist00.html#Timeline%20of%20FrameMaker [daube.ch]
Re:Won't hold up (Score:5, Informative)
Heck, I even wrote an XML based text editor back when I was learning Java in 2001 or so.
Go read the patent. Go!
The darn thing isn't for a pseudo-WYSIWYG XML editor. It's for a specific bundle of features that let you save your non-XML based word processing file as one single XML file, which includes bookmarks, styles, and "formatting hints" as well.
Making your word processor save to XHTML, or a randomly selected XML dialect? Obvious. The specific way you do that, and include some conventions for features that XML really wasn't meant to support? Non-obivous, and therefore patentable.
Also not all that broad.
And, of course,, the real nice thing: this patent only applies if you through a lot of formatting crap into your XML file as well... and I certainly don't remember anyone dumb enough to do that before Microsoft.
Re:Stop the madness (Score:3, Informative)
Red Hat love patents too.
I'll just point you here [slashdot.org].
Re:Won't hold up (Score:1, Informative)
If anyone on here actually bothered to read the patent they would see they are not patenting XML Documents. They are patenting a specific implementation and XSD format for multi application XML Documents. SGML nor open office would qualify as prior art as that is NOT what the patent is about.
Re:Won't hold up (Score:3, Informative)
But if they sue you, you'll go broke defending yourself, and then they'll win a default judgment against you because you didn't show up in the new venue that you were notified about yesterday.
Actually... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Won't hold up (Score:3, Informative)
If someone patents regular expressions would it be like an IP Perl Harbor?
There must have been a reason why Bell Labs didn't patent them. The setuid bit was patented. They documented it in the back of the Version 7 Green Book in the early 1980s.
Re:Bad Summary (Score:3, Informative)
As is all too often the case here on Slashdot, the summary has seized upon the title of the patent, which has no legal effect whatsoever, while ignoring the actual patent claims, which are all important
For reference, here is claim 1:
A method for creating a document in XML ("Extensible Markup Language") in a computing device that is understandable by many applications, comprising: accessing a published XSD ("XML Schema Definition") in said computing device, wherein the XSD defines rules relating to the XML file format for documents associated with an application having a rich set of features; determining an element to create in an XML file in said computing device, wherein the element is selected from a set of elements, including: a style element; a hints element that includes information to assist an external application in displaying text of the of the document; a bookmark element; wherein the bookmark element includes an identifier attribute that associates a start bookmark with an end bookmark element wherein two bookmark elements are used in book marking a portion of the document; wherein each of the two bookmark elements include an opening tag and an ending tag; a document properties element; a text element that contains text of the document; wherein all of the text of the document is stored within text elements such that only the text of the document is contained between start text tags and end text tags; wherein there are no intervening tags between each of the start text tags and each of the corresponding end text tags and wherein each of the start text tags do not include formatting information for the text between each of the start text tags and the end text tags; a text run element that includes the formatting information for the text within text elements; a font element; a formatting element; a section element; a table element; an outline element; and a proofing element; creating the document including the element in said computing device; and storing the document in said computing device.
Besides the claims, it is also important to read the description, because the description is used to figure out what the terms in the claims mean.
Re:Won't hold up (Score:3, Informative)
More like "patent rejected, $20k wasted". The cost of a patent application for a typical company is usually many times higher than the fee you pay to the patent office. Patent applications are complex legal documents, and patent attorney fees are usually a substantial portion of the total cost. You will also need to have your technical specialists to spend time consulting the attorneys. And you may need to perform a preliminary patent search, which means even more expensive hours spent.