----- Mensaje original ----- De: Robert Ramey <ramey@rrsd.com> Fecha: Domingo, Febrero 6, 2005 11:28 pm Asunto: [boost] Microsoft XML serialization patent

I just came upon an incredible thing.

It seems that microsoft has filed a U.S. Patent Application for XML serialization. I'm sort of dumbfounded at this. Truth be told I've seen a lot of even more ridiculous patents but somehow this strikes closer to home. I'm really at a loss to appreciate the ramifcations of this - if any.

Hi Robert, You shouldn't let this deprive you of your sleep :) Fact is, the primary reason for big companies patenting everything in sight is just the opposite than many people may think: this is a legal way to protect themselves from rogue firms trying to sue them. By being the first in patenting something, a future contender won't have the opportunity to file his own submission. A patent becomes invalid if somebody proves that the invention was in public use before submission of the patent. In the crazy case MS decided to enforce this serialization apparatus, one can easily claim that the two key ideas (namely XML as a serialization language and object tracking) were publicly used well before Dec 2004. But as I said, I don't really think it is MS' intention to go sue anybody. On a related theme, it is sad that patent offices all over the world will accept just everything submitted to them --from what I've learned about these issues in the past, the only requisite is that the submission is written according to some funky rules: for instance, in Spain you cannot patent an algorithm, but you can embed the algorithm into some kind of hypotethical physical apparatus and that will pass OK :) Joaquín M López Muñoz Telefónica, Investigación y Desarrollo PS: Off-topic, what happened to that article of yours relating the experiences of a Boost submitter? I really wanted to read it.