Microsoft asks court it wants to continue to sell Word

fck microscum what this is concerned, if it was any company infringing on their patents (no matter how meager) then Microsoft whould have thrown all the fuel they could find on them hoping them to burn to ashes so that MS can take over their marker share..so fckem go go open office!
 
<moLe> said:
fck microscum what this is concerned, if it was any company infringing on their patents (no matter how meager) then Microsoft whould have thrown all the fuel they could find on them hoping them to burn to ashes so that MS can take over their marker share..so fckem go go open office!
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You do realise that Open Office infringes on exactly the same patent as Microsoft Word,
 
Linoman said:
You do realise that Open Office infringes on exactly the same patent as Microsoft Word,
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The patent battle could have implications further down the road, however, as agencies consider what their future purchases should be. As Bjorklund said, some agencies still use Word rival WordPerfect, which is as yet unaffected by i4i’s patent claims. And others such as the Defense Department have been looking at open-source challengers to Microsoft, such as Sun's OpenOffice suite, available for free.

i4i said it has looked at OpenOffice and found it doesn’t infringe on its patents.
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http://gcn.com/Articles/2009/08/17/Federal-future-Microsoft-Word-uncertain.aspx?Page=2
 
Quite honestly, I don't think America has the guts to follow through with this - the big guy always wins. Look at GM or the big banks to see this.

For my own part, I was initially anti the ruling, since it's at best stupid to try to stop MS from selling word BUT like in the case of a rugby match, if one side gets a yellow card for an infringement we expect the opposite side to get the same yellow card even if one of the sides is New Zealand and the other is Turkmenistan - rules have to be applied fairly and consistently. MS has used many such strategies to bury opposing companies, so let the rules be applied fairly against it.

Secondly, MS arrogantly and blatantly disregarded the court rulings and tried to obstruct the courts (hence the additional fines over and above the $200 million), which means they had no intention of taking the rulings seriously, and hence have landed themselves in the ****.
 
Linoman said:
Ridiculous so even though Open Office can open and write to the same format that is being infringed by Word. It is allowed? I am all for this but if it is only targeted at Microsoft it is a joke.

Totally unfair!
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Have you read the patent?

If you haven't then you cannot comment on whether or not it is fair.

As far as I understand it it doesn't really have anything to do with being able to write to a certain format, but rather how that format is written, stored and read. Just because OpenOffice.org uses XML doesn't mean it does it in quite the same way as Word. Remember, the 'X' in XML stands for 'Extensible'. XML can be used in the way the author wants to use it.

Someone who has read the patent clarify?
 
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Linoman said:
Ridiculous so even though Open Office can open and write to the same format that is being infringed by Word. It is allowed? I am all for this but if it is only targeted at Microsoft it is a joke.

Totally unfair!
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Hi Linoman,

I'm not clued up as to the technicalities of the ruling, so interested in what people more knowledgable than me have to say.

The i4i Patent 5,787,449 describes a document format and a method of encoding where the document content "is totally unstructured and has no embedded metacodes in the data stream." It further states that the document structure definition is described in a separate "metacode map" where "for each metacode applied to the content an entry in the metacode map is created which describes the metacode and gives its position."
On the other hand, "XML (Extensible Markup Language) is a way of marking up structured documents, that is, documents in which the markup primarily indicates the content's purpose rather than its formatting." Although, the content formatting description is stored separately from the structured content, the formatting description does not have to exist at all --- the document interpretation can be based solely on the XML tags which state the content's purpose.
Anyhow, similarities between XML and i4i patented method exist, but the differences are clear. XML document content is structured and mixed-up with markup tags, while i4i format explicitly states the document content "is totally unstructured" and stored in the "raw content area."
Therefore, the i4i patent does not affect XML format at all, if affects non-XML specific proprietary extensions Microsoft uses in the XML-based MS Office document format(s). These are the proprietary extensions Microsoft "invented" to screw-up other software developers who may try to develop open/save procedures for Microsoft proprietary "custom XML" documents. Well, I guess the chickens have come home to roost.
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http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2351551,00.asp

What do you make of this comment?
 
porchrat said:
Have you read the patent?

If you haven't then you cannot comment on whether or not it is fair.

As far as I understand it it doesn't really have anything to do with being able to write to a certain format, but rather how that format is written, stored and read. Just because OpenOffice.org uses XML doesn't mean it does it in quite the same way as Word. Remember, the 'X' in XML stands for 'Extensible'. XML can be used in the way the author wants to use it.

Someone who has read the patent clarify?
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Have you read the patent?
 
Tassidar said:
Hi Linoman,

I'm not clued up as to the technicalities of the ruling, so interested in what people more knowledgable than me have to say.


http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2351551,00.asp

What do you make of this comment?
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I am not exactly what you would call a guru, but I do have some experience with markup languages so I decided to take a brief look through the patent, but of course I haven't looked at how OpenOffice.org handles these sorts of documents so I can't comment on whether or not the claims that the patent isn't infringed upon are valid.

However (for those who are interested) it looks like the crux of this patent is that the content is stored separately from the meta-data (meta-data, for those who don't know is extra descriptive data about content data normally in existence to provide some sort of deeper meaning to the actual content in a document) detailing structure of the document. I suppose sort of like markup languages and stylesheets.

There appear to be some differences though. Instead of using unique id's specified by the author (as is the case with CSS and HTML), it instead involves creating something called a "metacode map" which looks like a series of pointers that detail where the various tags would fall in the document containing the content. In other words the file containing the content doesn't contain tags.

Obviously I could be wrong about my interpretation of this patent as my experience with markup languages is limited. However if I am correct in my interpretation then this approach definitely does differ from standard XML in which the content and meta-data are stored within the same document. Although perhaps the conflict lies with the Document Type Definition (DTD) or something as a DTD stored elsewhere could perhaps be interpreted as storing structure separate from content, but IMO it is hardly the same as the concept discussed in the patent (anyone else care to give some input on this?)

So as to whether or not that comment mentioned by Tassidar is accurate I'd say it is pretty accurate.

If Microsoft utilised this pointer system to store their "custom XML" documents then they are guilty of infringment. If OpenOffice.org have somehow managed to process their documents in a different manner (something more akin to standard XML), then they are not guilty.

Obviously if someone else has a different interpretation then it would be awesome of them to post it. I haven't had time to read through the entire patent so I may very well have misinterpreted something. Also someone with more extensive experience with markup languages (XML specifically) would be great.
 
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If Microsoft utilised this pointer system to store their "custom XML" documents then they are guilty of infringment.
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Assuming the correctness of this assumption, it highlights the stupidity of non-specific software patents! For instance I've used pointers to image files from database entries, rather than embedding them in the DB, for very many years!

The technique isn't rocket science and I would expect any professional developer worth his salt to have used something similar in order to optimise his application.

And, no, I have not read the patent :)
 
bekdik said:
Assuming the correctness of this assumption, it highlights the stupidity of non-specific software patents! For instance I've used pointers to image files from database entries, rather than embedding them in the DB, for very many years!

The technique isn't rocket science and I would expect any professional developer worth his salt to have used something similar in order to optimise his application.

And, no, I have not read the patent :)
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Well I agree with you entirely, there is definitely plenty of prior art for this. I mean, how do they think memory functions?...hello, pointers?
 
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Whether or not this is a justifiable patent suit is immaterial - M$ have been pulling this trick for years.
Turnaround is fairplay.
 
porchrat said:
Well I agree with you entirely, there is definitely plenty of prior art for this. I mean, how do they think memory functions?...hello, pointers?
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The patent is not about pointers... Please read it and try to understand before looking for prior art.

As I understand it, it is about the way that data is stored WITHIN the XML file. As microsoft did not want to open up their document format to outside companies, they purposely did not store all the markup elements inside the normal XML file, but used pointers to binary sections WITHIN the XML file. Thus keeping the markup in binary so that other companies will never know the precise markups. This is exactly the patent being infringed on. This is also the reason why PCMAG said:

Therefore, the i4i patent does not affect XML format at all, if affects non-XML specific proprietary extensions Microsoft uses in the XML-based MS Office document format(s). These are the proprietary extensions Microsoft "invented" to screw-up other software developers who may try to develop open/save procedures for Microsoft proprietary "custom XML" documents. Well, I guess the chickens have come home to roost.
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zamicro said:
The patent is not about pointers... Please read it and try to understand before looking for prior art.

As I understand it, it is about the way that data is stored WITHIN the XML file. As microsoft did not want to open up their document format to outside companies, they purposely did not store all the markup elements inside the normal XML file, but used pointers to binary sections WITHIN the XML file. Thus keeping the markup in binary so that other companies will never know the precise markups. This is exactly the patent being infringed on. This is also the reason why PCMAG said:
Therefore, the i4i patent does not affect XML format at all, if affects non-XML specific proprietary extensions Microsoft uses in the XML-based MS Office document format(s). These are the proprietary extensions Microsoft "invented" to screw-up other software developers who may try to develop open/save procedures for Microsoft proprietary "custom XML" documents. Well, I guess the chickens have come home to roost.
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Er, if Microsoft "invented" extensions to foil others, then howcome this 'invention' apparently violates someone else's patent? Ascribing evil intentions to Microsoft for this 'invention' must mutatis mutandis also apply to i4i, who are claiming they are the real inventors of the schema.

People sure are rushing to judgment on this, and of course Microsoft is evil - facts aside, we all know they, eh!
 
zamicro said:
The patent is not about pointers... Please read it and try to understand before looking for prior art.

As I understand it, it is about the way that data is stored WITHIN the XML file. As microsoft did not want to open up their document format to outside companies, they purposely did not store all the markup elements inside the normal XML file, but used pointers to binary sections WITHIN the XML file. Thus keeping the markup in binary so that other companies will never know the precise markups. This is exactly the patent being infringed on. This is also the reason why PCMAG said:
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Thank you for that interesting post. I honestly have to agree with you on the whole "prior art" comment I made previously, it was made in haste. I was actually considering editing it, but I thought the thread had died so I didn't bother. :p

As for what the patent is about, perhaps I didn't give it the time it deserves, I had seen the tables pointing to specific character positions within the XML document and breezed through it believing I had understood the crux of it. I didn't spend time reading about what form it was taking or how it functioned in any great detail. Thank you for furthering our understanding of the issue.

Unfortunately it isn't really possible (AFAIK), but it would be great to see how MS was storing these documents in order to make up our own minds about whether or not infringement occurred. Considering the access to OpenOffice.org is possible, can anyone who has looked at that code (though I doubt there are too many out there who have) comment on how this particular issue was worked around, if indeed it even was?

Arthur said:
Er, if Microsoft "invented" extensions to foil others, then howcome this 'invention' apparently violates someone else's patent? Ascribing evil intentions to Microsoft for this 'invention' must mutatis mutandis also apply to i4i, who are claiming they are the real inventors of the schema.

People sure are rushing to judgment on this, and of course Microsoft is evil - facts aside, we all know they, eh!
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Having a journalist in a magazine say that you invented something and actually having invented something are 2 entirely different things. That article is by no means proof that Microsoft invented the system.

Whether or not Steve Ballmer is the anti-christ, or Microsoft is evil (even though both of those statements are true :p) has nothing to do with whether or not MS is guilty of patent infringement, lets try to keep this discussion as logical as possible and not devolve into a crazy flamewar... about how evil MS is... which they are... definitely...
 
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