Roy Schestowitz wrote:
> Microsoft Patents "Content syndication platform"
>
> ,----[ Quote ]
> | A content syndication platform, such as a web content syndication
> | platform, manages, organizes and makes available for consumption
> | content that is acquired from the Internet.
> `----
Actually, it looks like they are not patenting RSS, but rather the
delivery of OLE objects, COM objects, and/or ActiveX controls using RSS
feeds.
> http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PG01&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=%2220060288329%22.PGNR.&OS=DN/20060288329&RS=DN/20060288329
> http://tinyurl.com/u7ydh
>
> The last company on Earth to even accept the existence of feeds. Amazing!
The irony is that they are patenting the delivery of executable code
and
automatic execution of this code is pretty much openly admitting
responsibility for creating a back door which will be used by hackers
to spread malware even more efficiently than Web pages or Outlook.
It also appears to be a "squatter" patent on technology used in MQSI,
WMQI, and WBI-MQ.
Certainly, given the availablity of this technology for XML over HTTP,
MQ, and sockets, it could be argued that most of the claims could be
intuitively derived from prior art, including tecnology and
documentation of others.
Furthermore, there is almost no prior art, and what little is listed,
barely scratches the surface. It's a good defensive patent and can be
used to trade for other defensive patents, but the patent itself is
probably unenforceble.
Unfortunately, Microsoft has to file the patent application to keep one
of those 2 person 10 patent "corporations" from being sued by the
lawyer of the corporation who claims that the inventor member of the
corporation invented it first and that Microsoft has infringed on their
patent.
This is the biggest problem if software patents. The patent office has
record of first filing, but little or no record of prior art, prior
related art, prior art involving the work of other inventors, and
different expressions of the same idea (which means that both ideas can
only be covered by copyright, but can only be patented by the first
expression).
Unfortunately, if the patent isn't challenged and nullified, Microsoft
could later claim that ODF over RSS was a violation of this patent, and
it could cost millions to defend against such a lawsuit, even though
the outcome in relatively predictable.
The irony is that if Software had been patented in say, 1960, there
would be no Microsoft, because Microsoft would have had to pay
royalties on all of the patents owned by IBM, DEC, HP, and AT&T. In
fact, if registration of copyrighted works had been necessary, it's
possible that Microsoft would have been required to pay royalties on
code it has protected through nondisclosure agrements and reverse
engineering restrictions that have been made part of the Microsoft EULA
for most Microsoft products.
It's quite possible that most of the PC industry, as we know it today
would not exist. Had it not been for BSD, GPL, SimTel-20, and the
declassification of DOD technology, it's quite likely that we would
still be using adding machines and Selectric typriters, and sending the
messages on paper inserted into paper envelopes.
We might have had at least 3 recessions, and at least one of them would
have made the great depression look like a minor economic slowdown.
The USA might have even lost the cold war.
Software patents are a bad idea for multiple reasons, not the least of
which is the lack of a properly managed software archive for the past
70 years.
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