Is there a patent on XML itself?

[Grant Robertson]

If the W3C created the XML standard, did they apply for a patent on it?
The only thing I can find on the W3C site is their policy about freely
licensing any patented technology related to a standard.

I know all about Microsoft trying to patent every possible thing you
could do with an XML file. I don't really want to go off on that tangent.
Right now, I am just trying to figure out if there is a patent on the XML
standard itself and, if so, who owns it.

[Peter Flynn]

Grant Robertson wrote:

If the W3C created the XML standard, did they apply for a patent on it?
The only thing I can find on the W3C site is their policy about freely
licensing any patented technology related to a standard.

I know all about Microsoft trying to patent every possible thing you
could do with an XML file. I don't really want to go off on that tangent.
Right now, I am just trying to figure out if there is a patent on the XML
standard itself and, if so, who owns it.

XML (the concept, ie the standard) is neither software nor hardware, and
as far as I know it is therefore not patentable. I know that won't stop
the USPO allowing someone to patent it, but we'll cross that bridge when
we come to it.

///Peter
--
XML FAQ: http://xml.silmaril.ie/

[Grant Robertson]

In article <57************ *@mid.individua l.net>, pe********@m.si lmaril.ie
says...

XML (the concept, ie the standard) is neither software nor hardware, and
as far as I know it is therefore not patentable. I know that won't stop
the USPO allowing someone to patent it, but we'll cross that bridge when
we come to it.

The Open Document Format standard is neither software or hardware and it
has a patent. So does Dell's business process. There is no requirement
that something be software or hardware for there to be a patent.

I'm not looking for arguments or speculation as to whether it logically
should or should not have a patent. I just want to know if anyone knows
for sure whether it does or does not have a patent.

Thank you.

[Peter Flynn]

Grant Robertson wrote:

In article <57************ *@mid.individua l.net>, pe********@m.si lmaril.ie
says...

>XML (the concept, ie the standard) is neither software nor hardware, and
as far as I know it is therefore not patentable. I know that won't stop
the USPO allowing someone to patent it, but we'll cross that bridge when
we come to it.

The Open Document Format standard is neither software or hardware and it
has a patent. So does Dell's business process. There is no requirement
that something be software or hardware for there to be a patent.

Sorry, my fault: I was just doing something else with software patents
when I read the post, and I meant XML is not patentable as a piece of
software. You can indeed patent anything you like in the USA, regardless
of whether it makes sense to or not. Patents can also be used
defensively, to prevent others less scrupulous from patenting ideas not
theirs.

I'm not looking for arguments or speculation as to whether it logically
should or should not have a patent. I just want to know if anyone knows
for sure whether it does or does not have a patent.

I've never heard of one, but in the current circumstances I don't think
anyone is in a position to certify that it does or does not have a patent.

///Peter

[Grant Robertson]

In article <57************ *@mid.individua l.net>, pe********@m.si lmaril.ie
says...

I meant XML is not patentable as a piece of
software. You can indeed patent anything you like in the USA, regardless
of whether it makes sense to or not. Patents can also be used
defensively, to prevent others less scrupulous from patenting ideas not
theirs.

That is the very reason I am asking. I am inventing an XML standard and
am trying to decide if I should go to the trouble and expense of
patenting it. My main reason for doing so would be to prevent the likes
of Microsoft from "embracing and extending" my standard in order to kill
it or steal it.

I've never heard of one, but in the current circumstances I don't think
anyone is in a position to certify that it does or does not have a patent.

Thanks for the info. Something tells me that there wouldn't be such a
brouhaha over who owns patents to XML if W3C had crafted a well designed
patent when they first invented XML years ago.

[Simon Brooke]

in message <MP************ ************@ne ws.newsguy.com> , Grant Robertson
('b****@bogus.i nvalid') wrote:

In article <57************ *@mid.individua l.net>, pe********@m.si lmaril.ie
says...

>I meant XML is not patentable as a piece of
software. You can indeed patent anything you like in the USA, regardless
of whether it makes sense to or not. Patents can also be used
defensively, to prevent others less scrupulous from patenting ideas not
theirs.

That is the very reason I am asking. I am inventing an XML standard and
am trying to decide if I should go to the trouble and expense of
patenting it.

Absolutely not - in your own interest. Before the Web, there were dozens of
perfectly good distributed hypertext systems. Only problem - they were all
proprietary and so none of them got traction. If you overprotect
your 'invention', no-one will use it.

People think Tim Berners Lee was foolish for 'giving away' the Web. But all
the inventors of the Web's predecessors are now marginal or out of
business all together, whereas Sir Tim has his knighthood, a great deal of
respect and influence in the community, and a very nice salary, thank you.

It's better to have a little bit of something very big than the whole of
something very small.

My main reason for doing so would be to prevent the likes
of Microsoft from "embracing and extending" my standard in order to kill
it or steal it.

They'll only try if it gets traction - and if you patent it it will never
get traction.

Thanks for the info. Something tells me that there wouldn't be such a
brouhaha over who owns patents to XML if W3C had crafted a well designed
patent when they first invented XML years ago.

But no-one would be using XML if they had. XML is only a prolix syntax for
S-Expressions, and S-Expressions, though very flexible, are not the only
flexible expression of data. If XML were encumbered with patents, we'd all
be using something different.

--
si***@jasmine.o rg.uk (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/

IMHO, there aren't enough committed Christians, but that's care
in the community for you. -- Ben Evans

[Grant Robertson]

In article <9f************ @gododdin.inter nal.jasmine.org .uk>,
si***@jasmine.o rg.uk says...

in message <MP************ ************@ne ws.newsguy.com> , Grant Robertson
('b****@bogus.i nvalid') wrote:

I am inventing an XML standard and
am trying to decide if I should go to the trouble and expense of
patenting it.

Absolutely not - in your own interest. Before the Web, there were dozens of
perfectly good distributed hypertext systems. Only problem - they were all
proprietary and so none of them got traction. If you overprotect
your 'invention', no-one will use it.

I'm sorry, I didn't mention that I also intend to license the standard
freely in accordance with the W3C's patent policy. The only restriction I
would place on the license would be that no one could extend the standard
without going through the standards body. No one would be allowed to
"embrace and extend" for proprietary purposes as Microsoft is fond of
doing.

Here are some articles that deal with the issue of patents and standards:

http://www-03.ibm.com/developerworks...page/BobSutor?
entry=grading_o pen_standards_w hat_does

http://stephesblog.blogs.com/my_webl...tandards_.html
I agree that HTML probably wouldn't have taken off like it did if there
were restrictions on how it could be extended. But then HTML was pretty
simple and rather lame back then. Most people had never heard of a markup
language at the time. That was then, this is now. Markup languages are
big business and there are lots of sharks and submarines in the waters
looking to score big by claiming rights to something that isn't properly
protected. The Open Document Format standard is patented by Sun with a
free license and most of the rest of the world is working on adopting it.
But since it is protected, Microsoft can't "embrace and extend" it so
they have to resort to issuing a competing standard that no one is paying
attention to.

So, I believe the factors that currently foster adoption are:

1) Free, as in beer.

2) Flexibility.

3) Controlled by an independent, non-commercial standards body.

4) Protected from unauthorized, proprietary "extension. "

People think Tim Berners Lee was foolish for 'giving away' the Web. But all
the inventors of the Web's predecessors are now marginal or out of
business all together, whereas Sir Tim has his knighthood, a great deal of
respect and influence in the community, and a very nice salary, thank you.

Exactly. I keep telling my friends that Linus Torvolds hasn't made a
penny from licensing Linux, but he always has a job. Now, whether Linux
is patented or not, I don't know. So it may be a bad analogy.

It's better to have a little bit of something very big than the whole of
something very small.

Also, what I have said many times. All I want is to earn a modest salary
as an employee of the non-profit promoting the standard. You know the W3C
is not an all volunteer operation, after all.

They'll only try if it gets traction - and if you patent it it will never
get traction.

Thanks for the info. Something tells me that there wouldn't be such a
brouhaha over who owns patents to XML if W3C had crafted a well designed
patent when they first invented XML years ago.

But no-one would be using XML if they had. XML is only a prolix syntax for
S-Expressions, and S-Expressions, though very flexible, are not the only
flexible expression of data. If XML were encumbered with patents, we'd all
be using something different.

I don't agree with that logic but that is just my opinion. Crayola
patented their crayons but you can still draw lots of pretty pictures
with them. If the patents are licensed for free, with no restrictions on
how the technology can be used, then there is nothing stopping anyone
from building new patents based on the technology, or just making up new
inventions or standards based on the other patent and never patenting
that new part. Just as there is nothing stopping anyone from extending an
unpatented, prior-art and patenting the extension or improvement. Almost
no patents are on entirely new things with no prior art. The patent only
covers what is new and different. If the owner of the new patent wants to
do anything with their new technology then they must have rights to use
the prior art. This is achieved either through licensing existing patents
or simply using the unpatented, prior-art for free.

If I patent my standard, I will be able to license it for free. But I
will also be able to place restrictions on that license. I can say it is
free only so long as you don't attempt to "embrace and extend" the
standard for proprietary purposes. This is the best of both worlds.

[Simon Brooke]

in message <MP************ ************@ne ws.newsguy.com> , Grant Robertson
('b****@bogus.i nvalid') wrote:

In article <9f************ @gododdin.inter nal.jasmine.org .uk>,
si***@jasmine.o rg.uk says...

>People think Tim Berners Lee was foolish for 'giving away' the Web. But
all the inventors of the Web's predecessors are now marginal or out of
business all together, whereas Sir Tim has his knighthood, a great deal
of respect and influence in the community, and a very nice salary, thank
you.

Exactly. I keep telling my friends that Linus Torvolds hasn't made a
penny from licensing Linux, but he always has a job. Now, whether Linux
is patented or not, I don't know. So it may be a bad analogy.

Of course it's not. How could it be? It started out as the apolitical son
of communists in a socialist country deliberately reverse engineering an
existing system - UN*X. It's now significantly different from UN*X in some
interesting ways, and some people claim to have patents on many parts of
it (see for example the ongoing IBM/SCO/Novell litigation). None of these
can or will stop Linux.

Thanks for the info. Something tells me that there wouldn't be such a
brouhaha over who owns patents to XML if W3C had crafted a well
designed patent when they first invented XML years ago.

But no-one would be using XML if they had. XML is only a prolix syntax
for S-Expressions, and S-Expressions, though very flexible, are not the
only flexible expression of data. If XML were encumbered with patents,
we'd all be using something different.

I don't agree with that logic but that is just my opinion. Crayola
patented their crayons but you can still draw lots of pretty pictures
with them.

And you can buy other crayons from other people. A crayon is not a
standard. A standard is something used by a community of independent and
in many cases competing and even hostile bodies in order to allow them to
interact; consequently, a standard does not work unless it has effective
monopoly. Many standards - even many variations on the same standard
(RS232) - are equivalent to no standard.

If the patents are licensed for free, with no restrictions on
how the technology can be used, then there is nothing stopping anyone
from building new patents based on the technology, or just making up new
inventions or standards based on the other patent and never patenting
that new part. Just as there is nothing stopping anyone from extending an
unpatented, prior-art and patenting the extension or improvement. Almost
no patents are on entirely new things with no prior art. The patent only
covers what is new and different. If the owner of the new patent wants to
do anything with their new technology then they must have rights to use
the prior art. This is achieved either through licensing existing patents
or simply using the unpatented, prior-art for free.

If I patent my standard, I will be able to license it for free. But I
will also be able to place restrictions on that license. I can say it is
free only so long as you don't attempt to "embrace and extend" the
standard for proprietary purposes. This is the best of both worlds.

I think you are deluding yourself. In most of the world, software patents
are illegal anyway (as they should be). In the US, where they're not
illegal, as you yourself say the people likely to 'embrace and extend' a
successful standard are Microsoft. Do you think you could afford a battle
with Microsoft in the US courts? How many billion dollars could you
personally afford to pay your lawyers?

--
si***@jasmine.o rg.uk (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/
"This young man has not the faintest idea how socialists think and does
not begin to understand the mentality of the party he has been elected
to lead. He is quite simply a liberal"
-- Ken Coates MEP (Lab) of Tony Blair

[Grant Robertson]

In article <r7************ @gododdin.inter nal.jasmine.org .uk>,
si***@jasmine.o rg.uk says...

I think you are deluding yourself. In most of the world, software patents
are illegal anyway (as they should be). In the US, where they're not
illegal, as you yourself say the people likely to 'embrace and extend' a
successful standard are Microsoft. Do you think you could afford a battle
with Microsoft in the US courts? How many billion dollars could you
personally afford to pay your lawyers?

Technically, this wouldn't be a software patent. It would be a process
patent. If patents on standards were worthless, do you think Sun would
have patented Open Document Format? Perhaps. Big companies patent how
many steps it took to get down the hall today, just in case.

I wouldn't battle Microsoft in the courts. I would battle them in the
public press. I would shame Bill Gates for trying to monopolize education
and profit from the suffering of the poor. I would also write his wife a
letter asking her to appeal to what little conscience he has left.

Besides, are you saying that I should never try to protect intellectual
property just because someone like Bill Gates could steal it if they
wanted to? If that were the case then we might as well just stop
inventing anything and let Microsoft and IBM do it all.

If I don't protect the standard then I will have more than Microsoft to
deal with. I will then have to deal with every shyster with a lawyer
trying to horn in on my invention.

I want to give it away for free. But, in order to do that, I have to
ensure that it will stay free.

[gg]

but is a published process like the xml standard patentable?
"Grant Robertson" <bo***@bogus.in validwrote in message
news:MP******** *************** *@news.newsguy. com...

In article <r7************ @gododdin.inter nal.jasmine.org .uk>,
si***@jasmine.o rg.uk says...

I think you are deluding yourself. In most of the world, software

patents

are illegal anyway (as they should be). In the US, where they're not
illegal, as you yourself say the people likely to 'embrace and extend' a
successful standard are Microsoft. Do you think you could afford a

battle

with Microsoft in the US courts? How many billion dollars could you
personally afford to pay your lawyers?

Technically, this wouldn't be a software patent. It would be a process
patent. If patents on standards were worthless, do you think Sun would
have patented Open Document Format? Perhaps. Big companies patent how
many steps it took to get down the hall today, just in case.

I wouldn't battle Microsoft in the courts. I would battle them in the
public press. I would shame Bill Gates for trying to monopolize education
and profit from the suffering of the poor. I would also write his wife a
letter asking her to appeal to what little conscience he has left.

Besides, are you saying that I should never try to protect intellectual
property just because someone like Bill Gates could steal it if they
wanted to? If that were the case then we might as well just stop
inventing anything and let Microsoft and IBM do it all.

If I don't protect the standard then I will have more than Microsoft to
deal with. I will then have to deal with every shyster with a lawyer
trying to horn in on my invention.

I want to give it away for free. But, in order to do that, I have to
ensure that it will stay free.