i4i Says OpenOffice Does Not Infringe Like MS Word 146
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "After the permanent injunction barring Microsoft from selling Microsoft Word, many armchair lawyers and pundits wondered how the ruling would affect OpenOffice. The company with the patent, i4i, believes that OpenOffice does not infringe upon it. But lest anyone think that therefore ODF will win out over OOXML, keep in mind that Microsoft has its own broad XML document patent, which issued just two weeks ago, having been filed in December 2004, and they're telling the Supreme Court to apply the Bilski ruling narrowly, so that it doesn't invalidate patents like theirs (and i4i's). After all, unlike most companies and individuals, Microsoft can afford $290 million infringement fines. Then again, given that Microsoft's new patent has only two independent claims (claim #1 and claim #12), and both of those claims 'comprise' something using an 'XML file format for documents associated with an application having a rich set of features,' maybe they wouldn't be that hard to work around if you just make sure any otherwise infringing format is only associated with an application lacking in the feature richness department."
Gold digging? (Score:3, Interesting)
Why spend money on litigation against OpenOffice if you don't get a $290 mil return on investment.
Re:No matter who wins (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:The MS patent does not affect ODF. (Score:5, Interesting)
The submitted article cites the patent owner saying it doesn't apply to ODF. Why would I care what someone who says about himself, "I am not a lawyer, and specifically not a patent lawyer. I have never spent a lot of time on learning about the intricacies of patent law" has to say on the matter at this point? In fact, why would I care even what experienced patent lawyers have to say now? Hasn't it been definitively settled by i4i's statement?
Someone doesn't quite understand patents (Score:5, Interesting)
This has absolutely no bearing on whether or not Microsoft will be allowed to continue shipping Word.
i4i is entirely within their right not to license the patent to Microsoft, even if/after Microsoft pays the fines and damages.
Re:The MS patent does not affect ODF. (Score:4, Interesting)
The submitted article cites the patent owner saying it doesn't apply to ODF. Why would I care what someone who says about himself, "I am not a lawyer, and specifically not a patent lawyer. I have never spent a lot of time on learning about the intricacies of patent law" has to say on the matter at this point? In fact, why would I care even what experienced patent lawyers have to say now? Hasn't it been definitively settled by i4i's statement?
What hasn't been settled by i4i's statement is the (IMO false) claim that the MS patent affects ODF more than the i4i patent does.
I just can't believe (Score:1, Interesting)
all the shills here still trying to call I4i a patent troll. It's been proven conclusively that they do not fit the definition, and they have said their patent isn't violated by ODF, yet the same old lies just keep on coming.
I can't believe the lack of ethics and outright lying that goes on here. I'd have to hide my head in shame if I were caught in the lies being told here. Yet, here are shills still trumpeting their crap.
It's no wonder the US is going down the tubes and our society is collapsing as this type of behavior is unsustainable in any society. However, there is a fairly large segment of our population that just doesn't care or aren't smart enough to realize what their actions cause. A short term dollar for a very large long-term loss is a lousy trade.
For a few bucks they will shit in their own back yard and destroy their own society. IMO, that makes them dumber than any dog I've ever owned. At least none of my dogs would ever shit in their own back yard.
You say this is harsh? Go read about how Rome's, and every other major civilization's, society crumbled and you'll see the same exact types of behavior. We are on the road to repeating their failures if things don't change.
Re:No matter who wins (Score:2, Interesting)
Yup. I think it's because the patent system is inherently anti-consumer. Whether MS itself is pro- or anti-consumer doesn't seem to matter, every time they get in patent trouble it's the consumer who loses out, and usually over something that shouldn't really be patentable at all. Remember that viewing a spreadsheet as a database table thing? Where somehow it was patentable that one thing whose most obvious representation is a grid be mappable to something else whose most obvious representation is a grid. Net result: consumer lost a feature for no technical reason whatsoever. Anyway, if a system makes software worse, as a programmer and a user I think that system needs to be abolished.
And the extra problem with such patent litigation is the broadness of the patents. The patents are so broad, they could easily apply to other (free) software as well, or they might unless Sun never adds certain features to OOo - how is that still free software? How can there be? Even if patent owners say they'll never sue over the patent, there's no guarantee that they won't, and certainly no guarantee they won't sue derivative software. And even so, I think it's unfair that a private entity could tell companies A, B and C to go and compete in the marketplace while withholding the patent licence from D, E, and F. And not just unfair to those companies (or rather the people making a living working for them, I know of course that companies don't have feelings) but it's also bad for the consumer as it reduces healthy competition.
And at a risk of swerving off-topic, I think that MS getting sued is bad for the consumer goes beyond the patent system. It always ends up with lawyers and judges demanding changes in software, which invariable cripples it, or a huge fine which ends up on the plate of the consumer. Saying that the consumer can choose something else is a) still not very realistic at the moment and b) even though I'm a huge free software fan I think it sounds like abuse of the legal system. On the whole I think I'd rather have a sound legal system, free software will win in the long run anyway.
What is non-custom XML? (Score:3, Interesting)
What I just completely fail to understand about this patent (i4i's patent I mean) is the words "custom XML". I keep seeing this term "custom XML" as part of its claims. But XML stands for the eXtensible Markup Language. It was designed to be customised. I don't understand,
What leap of logic am I missing here? (Having, obviously, not read the patent.)
Re:But i4i makes a custom XML product... (Score:4, Interesting)
The application of patents to software isn't enshrined in legislation, but instead was created by a series of court decisions and USPTO decisions.
Hence, the court has just as much power to strike down the beast as they did in creating it. Legislation would remove all ambiguity, where the supreme court is more likely to give as narrow an opinion as they can.
Translation: (Score:4, Interesting)
There's no money in enforcing a patent against Open Office, so we won't sue you. Should you start making a lot of money, we'll get back to you with our updated policy.
Gold digging. (Score:3, Interesting)
i4i claims to have patented the concept of storing a document's raw data and formatting data separately, rather than inline. Given that Microsoft Word's Custom XML stores its markup inline, I hardly see how i4i's patent applies here.
Also, on a *totally* unrelated topic, guess who, in 2000, won a multimillion dollar contract to provide XML authoring software to the US Patent office? i4i. http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/473021 [internetnews.com]
Re:The MS patent does not affect ODF. (Score:1, Interesting)
Seems to me that MS are finding the shoe on the other foot, and as usual sending the astroturfer army to work trying to blame everyone else and create the "poor MS" impression. Karma clearly does exist when judgments like this happen.
"Nobody likes seeing the seeing the system perverted" <<< this is what MS do ALL THE TIME. They do this better than making products. They've been getting away with this in EVERY country on the planet for DECADES. They are not used to being told "no". They believe they are above any laws or regulators. Despite all the cases against MS, it's only recently they've started being hit, and only for a fraction of the system gaming they've done. They are unrepentant in their contempt for anyone who stands up to them and tries to get them to compete fairly and obey the law.
The only hatred I see against i4i is coming from the MS astroturf army sent out to cause the hatred and give people the impression that it's widespread, when it's not. Congratulations on your role as a foot soldier in the astroturfer army btw, but you're a tad obvious not to be spotted and outed. Perhaps MS should make a cert for their shills, that way their illegal astroturfers wouldn't give themselves away so easily.
Instead of blaming Texas, why don;t you target the real problem? Software patents. Since MS have already brought up the Bilski ruling, I'm sure your employer wouldn't mind you addressing it too. Unless it's only the lawyers, spokespeople and PR goons that are allowed to speak for MS officially. Let the astroturfers make the noise, let the pretend journalists write their "independent" "poor MS" stories. I guess though that since MS have tried to aim the Bilski ruling by adding the "narrow use" line, they are treating it like an exploding bomb they'd rather use for their own aims to escape the net, while ensuring it won't be used when they are the patent aggressor, bullying another small company with an undisclosed patent claim and settling under an NDA for extortion money.
Fell free to mod this as flamebait (the MS shills who still have mod points won't be able to resist), but check hairyfeet's wikipedia edits for yourself. All modding down does is add more weight to what I'm saying.
Why Microsoft's patent termination clause is evil (Score:3, Interesting)
Incidentally, this is why the patent termination clause in Microsoft's OOXML patent license is evil. If Microsoft clones the features of a small company's patented software program for manipulating Office files, like they did in this case, all they would have to do is add it to the subset of OOXML covered by the patent promise and hey presto: if the company sues Microsoft, then Microsoft can countersue to terminate their ability to use OOXML, effectively destroying them. Meanwhile, competitors to Microsoft don't benefit from this, since Microsoft doesn't include anything really innovative in their patent promise.
Basically, it's a very one-sided deal - it lets Microsoft copy and extinguish the competition with impuny, like in this case, while still letting them use the patent system to stop anyone else from doing the same thing. (The same is true of the .Net equivalent.)
Re:Gold digging. (Score:3, Interesting)
Custom XML stores the markup inline, but the text itself is stored out-of-line.
Think about it this way: the i4i patent is on splitting the document into two parts, one of which contains just text, and a second part which contains formatting instructions and references the text by its location. With Custom XML, the first part is the custom XML file (text only, no formatting) and the second part is the document XML file (references the text in the custom XML file by full XML paths, and applies formatting to it). The patent doesn't require the locations to be character offsets, and the court decided XML paths were effectively a type of location information.
ODF's upcoming RDF-based equivalent of Custom XML doesn't infringe, since (a) it mostly inserts the text inline, and (b) it uses unique identifiers to glue the inline content and out-of-line metadata together, and those don't specify a location in any sense.