[aldo_14]

What.  The.  ****.

?

http://www.broadbandreports.com/shownews/68758
[q]The United States patent system has once again spawned a true gem: CNET is reporting that a small company by the name of Scientigo has claimed the patent for XML. Patents number 5,842,213  and 6,393,426 cover the transfer of "data in neutral forms." The company claims they'll be "monetizing" the intellectual property (read: trying to license use of XML).[/q]

EDIT; whoops, should read 'company'

EDIT2; appear to have been granted according to http://www.taglichbrothers.com/equityuniverse/companies/marketcentral/marketcentral-09222005.pdf
EDIT3; according to the above, it appears they are trying to patent the basic algorithm (well,  formula really; if you include the likes of Dice and Jacards' coefficients) used in web engine document indexing.

[kasperl]

Right.....

MS will own this one in court when the next office suite is released, anyway.

[IceFire]

From what I was reading...they will be very hard pressed to enforce that patent.  As XML was designed from HTML which was designed from SGML which extends back years and years and years.

What pisses me off is all this patent garbage.  It used to protect inventors...now its just home to small companies that go trolling for patents.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by IceFire
From what I was reading...they will be very hard pressed to enforce that patent.  As XML was designed from HTML which was designed from SGML which extends back years and years and years.

What pisses me off is all this patent garbage.  It used to protect inventors...now its just home to small companies that go trolling for patents.

Selective enforcement.  They'll go after small companies where the cost of 'licensing' is cheaper than the cost of legal action.  Probably in an isolated way so as to prevent co-operative alliances between said companies.

Or perhaps just to try and sell their patent portfolio to the likes of MS, IBM, Sun, etc.  From the looks of it they have decided upon a business based on patenting conceptal prior art and then suing over or selling it.

[Mefustae]

Originally posted by IceFire
As XML was designed from HTML which was designed from SGML which extends back years and years and years.

That's waaaaaay too many abbreviations for one sentence...

[IceFire]

Originally posted by Mefustae
That's waaaaaay too many abbreviations for one sentence...

No no....that'd be if I had mentioned XML, XHTML, HTML, CSS, CSS2, AGP, PCI, CPU, RAM, SODIMM, FCPGA, and several others

[Mefustae]

Originally posted by IceFire

No no....that'd be if I had mentioned XML, XHTML, HTML, CSS, CSS2, AGP, PCI, CPU, RAM, SODIMM, FCPGA, and several others

*Head explodes*

[Scottish]

No QVC?

[Fury]

OpenOffice 2.0 final was released only a few days ago. Why this move does not surprise me in the slightest? If you don't know what I am referring to, go here and read the first highlight feature.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Mr. Fury
OpenOffice 2.0 final was released only a few days ago. Why this move does not surprise me in the slightest? If you don't know what I am referring to, go here and read the first highlight feature.

I think this patent was granted some time ago, actually.  Read the EDIT3 link....

[wolfdog]

Originally posted by Mefustae
*Head explodes*

Oh, wait... I'll replace all those annoying abbreviations  for ya....

No no....that'd be if I had mentioned, Extensible Markup Language, Extensible Hypertext Markup Language, HyperText Markup Language, Cascading Style Sheets, Cascading Style Sheets 2, Accelerated Graphics Port, Peripheral Component Interconnect, Central Processing Unit, Random Acces Memory, Small outline dual inline memory module, Flip Chip Pin Grid Array and sevral others:D

That better?

[vyper]

There is no way this should've been granted. As IceFire pointed out the inheritence involved in XML from previous markup languages puts the claim on very shakey ground.

[Scottish]

Originally posted by wolfdog
Oh, wait... I'll replace all those annoying abbreviations  for ya....

That better?

Now do 'QVC' without looking it up....

[CP5670]

Anyone here been around long enough to remember what RAMALAMADINGDONG stood for?

(sorry, I can't remember )

[Scottish]

Roughly Abusing Men Against Long Anal Mashing Appliance, Dangling 'Is Naughty Googlies Down Over Nigerian Dogs?

Remember Anna's Mamma, Always Looking Around My Anus, Dancing In Naughty-Goo, Drinking Old Naughty-Goo?

[Grey Wolf]

FUBAR.

[CP5670]

I'm taking this thread off topic, but this just has to be posted:

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Ravenous Auxiliary Morons Against Loquacious Antelopes Milking Agricultural Dingoes In New Guinea's Diffuse Omni-directional Greens

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Who here remembers this?

[NGTM-1R]

Originally posted by Grey Wolf
FUBAR.

TARFU.

[Grey Wolf]

SNAFU.