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Patent Threats In OOXML
Posted by
kdawson
on Sun Aug 19, 2007 12:54 AM
from the rush-to-judgement dept.
from the rush-to-judgement dept.
An anonymous reader notes an initiative by the New Zealand Open Source Society to weigh in on the question of standardizing Microsoft's OOXML. The organization has authored a white paper (available in several formats, HTML here) laying out the ways in which the OOXML spec falls short of what a standard should be. From the article: "'If OOXML goes through as an ISO standard, the IT industry, government and business will [be] encumbered with a 6,000-page specification peppered with potential patent liabilities' said New Zealand OSS President Don Christie. 'Alarm bells are going off in many parts of the world over OOXML. Normally ISO draft standards would be drawn up by a number of stakeholder organizations, involving an often slow process of consensus building and knowledge sharing. Since many aspects of the office document format remain proprietary, OOXML has not taken this development track.'"
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Submission: Patent threat looms large over OOXML by Anonymous Coward
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Why am I not surprised (Score:5, Interesting)
In my opinion, the right solution to these patent problems is eliminating software and/or business process patents.
Re:Why am I not surprised (Score:4, Interesting)
1. Cost of patenting based on the wealth of the patentee. This should help the small garage inventor + actual real good innovations. Patent trolling will be less effective.
2. Patent to be supported by product within a period of 3 years. It is the responsibility of the patent holder to provide proof that a product that was created by his patent has been made after 3 years. This product has to be a) made by the patent holder or b) the patent holder has given license to the company which creates it. Otherwise the patent lapses. This would again take care of the patent trolls + help actual good inventions
3. The cost of patent to be borne across the years. Every 5 years the patent has be re-issued with quite a high fee (again based on the wealth of patentee). This means that only good useful products are under patent for the complete duration of the patent. This again will support the basic idea of patenting, i.e. really good useful ideas not to be kept under wraps, and not the small ideas.
I guess these ideas should help modify the patent system so that
a) Patent office gets more money which means more people, which means better results
b) Small guy inventor is supported
c) Real good ideas can be patented for the whole duration
d) Company still can work freely without struggling with frivolous patents, while producing real good products under patents themselves.
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Re:Why am I not surprised (Score:4, Insightful)
1. Start a new company
2. Patent something
3. License patent to big company
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Their lack of support for ODF didn't make that clear?
Open standards often are patented (Score:5, Informative)
1) The format is open and not subject to change/closure at the whim of a company (generally controlled by a standards body).
2) It is available under a reasonable and non-discriminatory (RAND) license. The two subsets of that are:
a) Reasonable. The fees required are in line with whatever it is. It's not a "Oh you want a license for that video codec? Ok $1,000,000 per player, no cap." That's clearly unreasonable and designed to keep people from licensing it.
b) Non-discriminatory. This means that you have to license to all comers. You can't decide you like what this company is doing but not this other company. Anyone who pays the moneys get the licenses.
3) All patent holders have agreed that the format can use their parents and that the only compensation they'll get is from those fees.
That's it. There are plenty of open standards that are indeed not free. Do not confuse open standard and open source. This is where the legal issues relating to MPEG and such with Linux come in to play. MPEG LA allows source only works for no licensing fee, but if you want to actually compile and use that, you need to pay a fee. If you don't, you are technically breaking the law. Thus for a Linux distro to include it without paying a fee could be a problem. The developers of the distro could pay if they wanted, it is about $100,000 for an unlimited license, but if they don't then it is a problem. That money is to pay the patent holders. Despite being an open standard, MPEG-4 is covered by about 28 PAGES of patents.
Re:Open standards often are patented (Score:5, Insightful)
Clearly the ISO bodies are being corrupted (packed) by MS and I really don't understand why. MS has never obeyed any standard and they will not obey this one either. Why does ISO even pretend that MS has respect for standards? Why do would they ratify a standard which will immediately be extended by MS?
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
But why there are so many there that wants to create an bad standard ?
Dont ask me that.
Re:Open standards often are patented (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, obviously Microsoft doesn't care about standards itself. However, others do, and Microsoft wants to abuse that fact. Understand now?
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OpenDocument format is already an ISO standard and has been since last year.
I think OOXML has already achieved Microsoft objective of creating confusion and doubt in the marketplace. ISO should swiftly reject OOXML to help eliminate that doubt.
Re:Open standards often are patented (Score:5, Informative)
No it doesn't. This FUD has been addressed long ago. http://blogs.sun.com/webmink/entry/raising_the_bar _on_patents [sun.com]
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Re:Open standards often are patented (Score:5, Informative)
The blog includes a link to the Sun promise http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/office/ipr.ph p [oasis-open.org]. If you'd read that and TFA, you'd have noticed that Sun give blanket indemnity for any implementation of ODF, while Microsoft only grants indemnity for the specification in the proposed MOOXML standard.
Since the MOOXML format is impossible to fully implement without using external specifications not covered by the covenant, Microsoft can still sue someone who implements MOOXML in their software.
Parent
Re:Open standards often are patented (Score:4, Informative)
If MS add a feature to their 'standard' and release that as a new version, then that new version isn't covered by the protection. Programs would not be allowed to add in those new features.
The ODF one, of course, guarantees any future versions are covered.
Parent
Microsoft covenant inferior to Sun covenant (Score:5, Informative)
I don't normally respond to trolls, but I want to make sure this is clear. Despite the claims of Microsoft's representatives, their patent covenant is not the same as Sun's [sun.com]. There are several important differences, as I pointed out at the time [sun.com]:
Items 1 and 2 are especially important. By reserving unaccountable judgement over what is and is not covered, they prevent implementors having certainty they will not face patent issues. This is exactly the way to chill the enthusiasm of open source developers, for whom certainty over their freedoms is the cornerstone of community. It's exactly the reason I made sure Sun's covenant was not crippled in the same way.
I have now had several reports of Microsoft's representatives claiming their covenant is the same as Sun's; it is not, please make sure anyone who says so is challenged.
There's one more issue of note, which the NZ paper makes clear. Microsoft explicitly uses proprietary formats within their MS-OOXML specification (DrawingML for example). If they want to provide comfort to open source developers, they need to go further and cover all referenced formats with their "promise" as well.
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Re:Not all standards are equal (Score:5, Funny)
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Apart from common sense, of course.
This is another red herring that has been addressed many times before, including here. http://www.openmalaysiablog.com/2007/02/microsoft s _defi.html [openmalaysiablog.com]
Microsoft is spinning duplicate standards as "choice" when in fact acceptance of MOOXML as a standard would be a breach of ISO's mandate.
"one standard, one test, and one conformity assessment procedure accepted everywhere."
Microsoft is pushing this line heavily in their attempt to subvert the approvals process in Standards Austr
Oh come now... (Score:3, Insightful)
I call prior art!
"The best thing about standards is that there are so many of them to choose from" (unknown, but ancient attribution)
Re:Open standards often are patented (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Open standards often are patented (Score:4, Informative)
Right, and nowadays, with the existence of Free Software, the only licenses that should qualify as "reasonable and non-discriminatory" are ones that Free Software can use!
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No, sorry doesn't work that way (Score:2)
For example I can charge a $5 cover for everyone for a bar. Tha
Re: Open standards often are patented (Score:4, Interesting)
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I disagree with a couple of the things you've said:
but I don't think it is unreasonable for people to want compensation for their work
The fact that a person wants compensation for work does not make it reasonable for that person to receive it. I may want compensation for writing a novel that no one wants to read. Tough luck. I may want compensation for parenting. Again, tough luck. Having some rights to the fruits of one's labour is different from demanding fruits from that labour. I'm sure you would
Re:Open standards often are patented (Score:4, Insightful)
Getting back on topic. I think the following from the conclusion of the article says it all: "While Microsoft has granted patent use over the required portions of the specification that are described in detail the numerous undisclosed behaviours and inexplicit definitions are not covered, providing a legal as well as technical barrier to OOXML's implementation". I think we can quite easily arrive at the conclusion that to adopt OOXML is to adopt something that cannot easily be implemented by a third party, so we can assume this is a proprietary format that is dressed up to look like it is an open format.
Parent
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The distro includes the src, and part of the install process compiles it in the background. The user chooses wether they want to compile it or not, but the distro is only distributing src.
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b) Non-discriminatory. This means that you have to license to all comers. You can't decide you like what this company is doing but not this other company. Anyone who pays the moneys get the licenses.
Focussing just on the money can easily make one miss the deeper problem with RAND terms. You'll find that some people now talk about RANDZ license terms, where the "Z" indicates "license fee is $0". But that doesn't necessarily make them any better. The license also has to allow sub-licensing without referral to the licensor. If it doesn't, open source implementations are effectively impossible since every developer and every user will need to independently obtain a license from the patent holder - an imp
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FYI:"Industry Standards" are patented (Score:2)
http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=273615&cid
Software Patents are Odious (Score:3, Interesting)
MPEG-4 would be an excellent example. It is an open standard, but has a whole lot of patents covering it.
That's an example of a scandal, not good practice. You can only believe that it's good practice if you believe in software and business method patents. Both of those things have been discredited as a corruption of the patent process and both are stiflingly anti-competitive. RAND is an obfuscation that reasonable standards bodies reject [slashdot.org].
OOXML would be an even bigger scandal because it does not even
There can be only one (Score:4, Interesting)
ODF has been gaining ground in the EU and in other parts of the world, whereas OOXML has to start from a dead stop. It's only asset is the marketing power of MSFT behind it, but that may not be enough. It is already clear (from other
Re:There can be only one (Score:4, Insightful)
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I doubt the boss will be going out of his way to select Microsoft's ooxml format.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I googled, and found: http://redmonk.com/sogrady/2006/07/06/microsoft-o
Which says that MS themselves said that you cannot change the default 'save as'.
Why would they say that? (Score:4, Insightful)
Given that Sun's ODF plug-in [sun.com] for MS Word does exactly that (simply adds ODF to the list of supported formats everywhere they occur in Word, including allowing it to be set as the default), it makes me wonder why Microsoft would say that.
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
http://blogs.msdn.com/brian_jones/archive/2007/05/ 11/german-standards-body-creates-new-working-group -to-focus-on-interoperability.aspx [msdn.com]
It seems pretty awful. The way they've had to do it themselves with OOXML is save as RTF, then in the background load the RTF file and save that as OOXML.
It seems their code base really is not designed for such changes.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
When your boss e-mails you ODF files, what are the chances that you won't have the upgraded software needed to read it? Bosses are dumb and will use whatever format the computer uses for them by default. However, the upgrade to MSO '07 will be a large expense for an IT staff to shoulder... and it is needed by everybody and not just the PHB.
Really, to defeat MOOXML, it is important to avoid the upgrade to MSO '07. The slow acceptable rate of Vista in businesses is a boon to this, because it takes away th
Re:There can be only one (Score:4, Informative)
However, it is still MS Office that is the most widely used office program, and at least here in Croatia, where nearly all software for private use - barring pre-installed Windows[1] - is still pirated (the businesses feel a moderate fear from the BSA, but that's about it), that means that the bestest and latest version of Office will be adopted, if in no other way, then by school kids, and therefore their parents as well.
Luckily, the fact that the BSA is a real threat means that (small) businesses will be very reluctant to migrate from Office 97 or 2000 to a new version, which costs oh, about the average month's pay. Per computer.
All in all, in order for ODF to become more widely accepted, at least in Croatia, all we FOSSies should do is approach the people we know are pirates and, uh, present OpenOffice.org as a viable alternative to fines and prosecution. It's high time we adopted some of our opponents' methods. </evil>
[1] If I mean a plural, should I say Windowses? ;)
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I don't see this being a big issue to even install since Joe user has had no problem installing quicktime, real player, divx etc. in the past.
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Right.
Hey, these are what? ten, twelve years old?
A number of years indeed.
"Auto space like Word 95" (Score:5, Insightful)
'Nuff said.
The existence of shit like that in the spec -- not to mention the obsolete HTML export described in the post below yours [slashdot.org] -- indicate that the OOXML architecture is just as shoddy as the grandparent post asserts!
In other words, he's right and you're trolling, so STFU and HAND.
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Oh, please. (Score:5, Insightful)
Not even Microsoft believes in the technical merit of their own spec, which is why they are resorting to their usual underhanded and corrupt tactics.
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1900 is my personal favourite (Score:5, Interesting)
Basically they are saying that although the Gregorian calendar says 1900 is NOT a leap year, from now on it should be, otherwise a certain program's spreadsheet data wouldn't be correct anymore because one programmer screwed up getting the dates right in said legacy program, many years ago.
Never mind that the world didn't start in 1900 (dates before either 1900 or 1904 are NOT IMPLEMENTED)
Never mind bothering to implement other calendars (Islamic, Chinese etc.) which might be of interest in large parts of the world.
WHY didn't they just use ISO 8601, like ODF did?
Speaking of ODF, this is what they put in par. 14.7.11 (p. 523) if you don't believe me:
So basically, my gripe with OOXML is not that it's legally unclear, or not open enough, it's that it's clearly not written to be A STANDARD. Think with me pls:
If the OASIS people overlooked an important calendar/date problem, and there is consensus, it can be added in the next version of the standard. All existing ODF documents are safe.
vs.
If the ECMA/Microsoft people decide one day to correct this bogus "1900 should from now on be a leap year" feature, all OOXML text documents that contain dates will have to be checked, and the ones that turn out to have dates from 1900 have to be corrected.
See the difference?
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Netscape 3? (Score:5, Informative)
and
Wow.Re: (Score:3, Funny)
The nice thing about standards (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft XML standard compliance would be just as useful as their POSIX compliance.
Five Letter Acronyms vs. Three Letter Acronyms (Score:3, Funny)
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Misnomer: Open Standards are often patented .... (Score:3, Insightful)
Correctly stated it is simply a standard, not "OPEN".
If you want to use a two word phrase, then the correct phrase for a few decades now has been and still is an "Industry Standard".
An "Industry Standard" is sometimes called an ANSI, ISO
By accepted technologist and L/FOSS convention dating back to the 1980's the usage of the term "OPEN" is conceptually reserved to products/ideas... that closely follow the "Public Property" [GPL, "Open Content", "Open Standards"
Just like a public park, which is always paid for by the public or philanthropic individuals/foundations, the property is provided and developed for the public welfare. Software patents and industry standards are an obvious attempt by corporatist and their governments to prevent access [easement] to public property that could/would limit the private property's owners attempts to control public property use by citizens.
I know you see my direction of debate/argument, the word "Open" when capitalized or in all caps (like an acronym) should have as much legal standing as the term "Microsoft", "California", "Navajo" "The United States" "Organic"
Revisionist-spin is never reality, but can be dogma for fools and "Exploiticians" to use for legal rights to the wind, they may even stupidly try to hold the wind for themselves.