Company Claims Patent Over XML

Aviran Mordo writes "News.com reports that a small software developer plans to seek royalties from companies that use XML, the latest example of patent claims embroiling the tech industry. Charlotte, N.C-based Scientigo owns two patents (No. 5,842,213 and No. 6,393,426) covering the transfer of 'data in neutral forms.' These patents, one of which was applied for in 1997, are infringed upon by the data-formatting standard XML, Scientigo executives assert."

Umm...Prior Art?

[Mad-Mage1]

XML is a derivative of SGML..WAY Older than 1997, I can't see how an IP attorney would suggest they actually litigate this. There is A LOT of prior art to go through, in a LOT of formats...This is going to take YEARS in a best case.

Can you get more generic?

[Anonymous Coward]

How much more generic than "data in neutral form" can you get?

If such patents are held to be enforcable you americans really need to start shooting the judiciary to help them get a sense of priorities sorted.

Patent protections

[totallygeek]

What is really accomplished in all this? No one has stopped making websites with GIF images. After I install Fedora on my box, I race out for the MP3 libs. So, if this goes through, we will all continue to use XML regardless?

I don't get it...

[SimReg]

Do these companies just forget they have a patent on some technology/feature and then 8 years later when their patent is included in a standard and a huge part of the community they say "Hey, didn't we patent that 8 years ago?"

There really needs to be some reform that states a company has 90 days, 1 year, or some short fixed period of time to bring a suit against a product, starting from the time it hits the market and is available to the public, the industry, or something.

The idea that you can silently sit on patents waiting for the world to embrace an obvious idea is an abuse of the system.

Bah.

[sethadam1]

Let's review the patenet, line 1:

The present invention simplifies the data modeling process and enables its full dynamic versioning by employing a non-hierarchical non-integrated structure to the organization of information.

Uh... is it just me, or is XML ENTIRELY hierarchical?? In fact, it won't validate if you don't have elements nested properly. How can they even be serious?

USPTO - Again

[geomon]

This fact:

Charlotte, N.C.-based Scientigo owns two patents (No. 5,842,213 and No. 6,393,426) covering the transfer of "data in neutral forms." These patents, one of which was applied for in 1997, are infringed upon by the data-formatting standard XML, Scientigo executives assert.

combined with this fact:

Daly noted that companies or even individuals often make patent claims on XML. For example, Microsoft, which uses XML as the foundation of many of its products, was awarded a patent for programming techniques related to XML.

shows me that the USPTO hopelessly is fucked up.

These people are either overwhelmed by the number of claims and have no time to do the proper research before granting a patent, or they are are just plain stupid. I'm going to be generous and assume that these examiners are given a quota that they have to have resolved each week and that they haven't the time or resources to validate every claim. There is probably also a lack of expertise in the USPTO to properly vet the claims made in these applications.

These insane patents are a good thing...

[RexRhino]

These insane patents are actually the best thing that could have ever happened. The way things are going now, there is going to have to be a major overhaul of the patent system. The instane patents have made it dramaticly clear that there is something wrong with the system (these are the tech equivelents of suing McDonalds because your kids are fat).

Had companies been less aggressive in patenting and litigating nearly anything possible, the system might go on how it is now for decades. These people are making the patent system collapse in a way that those against software patents don't have the power to do.

Re:Can you get more generic?

[Onan]

How much more generic than "data in neutral form" can you get?

If the writeup is accurate (a big supposition), this is pretty absurd. I'm amused by the very notion of patenting doing things not in any particular way.

If such patents are held to be enforcable you americans really need to start shooting the judiciary to help them get a sense of priorities sorted.

I have always held that the second ammendment has been broadly misunderstood: its goal was to allow people to overturn the government as necessary, not shoot burglars in their homes. Thus, using a gun on a criminal should still be classed as vigilanteism and a crime itself, but shooting any government official or law enforcement officer should be a constitutionally-protected right.

Re:Umm...Prior Art?

[hitchhikerjim]

Yeah -- but this one is going to be a battle of definitions I believe. I was around during the beginnings of XML and working with several of the companies that created XML (on other projeects)... SoftQuad and several other SGML product makers. They originally envisioned XML as a "simpler" version of SGML... and a way to capitalize on the web market that they were rapidly losing to companies that made products that were simpler in concept. ...and this all happened right around 1997. And I have some vague memory of Paul Odom, currently of Scientigo was involved. If he was the only one to file a patent, then people are screwed on this.

But I think it'll boil down to whether or not XML is actually different from SGML, or just a re-definition or derivation. IMHO it's a simpler re-definition/derivation. But others would differ on that.

Re:Invalid Claim

[RexRhino]

Yes!

Now all you need is two years and $5,000,000 for the legal fees to prove it in court!

ASCII?

[4Runner]

Isn't ASCII itself data transferred in a neutral form?

Re:These insane patents are a good thing...

[djmurdoch]

People have been saying that for about 20 years, and the patent system hasn't collapsed yet. I think you should catch on: bad things are bad, they're not good.

IP might be the right wing's welfare issue.

[hey!]

I can imagine patents and copyrights begin to gain the kind of unpopularity that welfare gained in the 70s and 80s. There are parallels. Welfare was meant to help the poor; but the programs were poorly designed. They there it was a short step to argue that the programs hurt the poor, aided by a few well chosen horror stories. Then a little banging of the idea's head up against a bedrock American values (self reliance), and you get the end of welfare as we know it.

Patents are supposed to help the business climate, but the program is sloppy that it exerts a chilling effect on innovation. There are no shortage of horror stories to buttress this. The bedrock value you break the whole system on is freedom itself.

Of course, the flaw in this scenario is the difference between the right and the left. We on the left have always been more of a crowd-type-mob than a mafia-type-mob. If there is no grass roots impetus, then there will be no movement.

What about the Patent examiner responsible?

[Anonymous Coward]

Shouldn't he/she be held accountable for any really STUPID decisions made?

Jesus, the amount of prior art related to this patent, and its similarity to so many other very questionable tech-related patent grants makes one wonder: Maybe if the examiners had their butts held to the fire, maybe they would be more careful about what they grant patent rights to...

???

Re:USPTO - Again

[geomon]

... there is no good way to run a patent office.

It seemed to run just dandy before the flood of business method and software patents hit the system.

Perhaps we need to define what is "patentable" rather than just throw up our hands and resign ourselves to bureaucratic mediocrity (of the system, not the examiners).

Re:XML predates this patent filing

[divisionbyzero]

Well, Channels are dead but "Pull" isn't. It lives on as RSS, but that's neither here nor there.

Re:I don't get it...

[BeJil]

Close, Lemelson had to do with something called "prosecution laches," and dealt with a patent strategy of keeping a patent from even issueing until the underlying technology becomes widespread. This practice is less problematic now than when Lemelson was originally filed due to changes in the length of a patent term (now a patent term is 20 years from the date of filing, when Lemelson was filed a patent term was 17 years from the date of issue). However, the broader concept of "laches" is relevant. In property law in general, "laches" is the doctrine that requires that a property owner must actively guard their property rights or they will lose them. For example (and this is a simplified example that is not 100% technically accurate), if your neighbor builds a fence that slops over onto your property and you do not make them remove it, after a long enough time period has passed your neighbors will legally own the property encompassed by the fence. The problem is that the application of laches in the IP realm is still an undeveloped concept and the courts have not adequately set out guidelines for determining when a patent holder has forfeited her rights.

Shouldn't they have defended their patent earlier?

[SilverJets]

Why isn't there some sort of time limit on how long you can sit back before choosing to file lawsuits against companies over patent infringement? XML has been in widespread use for at least 2 years if not longer. This company had to know it was out there and being used. So, they had to know it infringed on their patent.

Why didn't they stand up and say anything earlier? Oh yeah...because back then it would have meant alot less money to be gained. Doesn't this amount to blackmail? Or borders on racketeering?

How about gaseous molecules in neutral form

[queenb**ch]

Let's apply for a patent for a netural gas with the following composition:

Nitrogen - 78%
Oxygen - 21%
Argon - 1%
Carbon Dioxide - .03%
Neon - .002%
Methane - .0002%
Helium - .0005%
Krypton - .0001%
Hydrogen - .00005%
Xenon - .000009%

Wanna guess what I'm gonna do if I can get a patent on that?
<start evil laughter>
All of you will be my slaves and I will rule the world!!!
<end evil laughter>

Queen B

But does it matter?

[sterno]

The thing that's bad about this is that assuming these guys have enough money to front the lawyers they can sue their way into riches regardless of whether it's a valid claim. All they do is send nastygrams to a bunch of small companies they believe to be infringing on their patent seeking royalties. Invariably a number of those companies will pay up to avoid the potential of open ended legal battles.

So in the 90's it was:

1) Do something cool
2) ...
3) Profit

In the 00's it's

1) Do something somebody else did before
2) Sue everybody who already did it
3) Profit

I can't wait for my patent to come through...

[IgLou]

On sending data via an electronic mechanism... come on, if this doesn't get smacked down thoroughly I'll get royally pissed!

There is so much wrong with this I can't even begin!! Freakin' misuse of patents by doughheads who seek to make money on other people's efforts!

GRR!

Re:How abstract can a patent be?

[Optic7]

Hmmm... sounds like a kung-fu movie dialog:

cut to Shaolin Temple:

Master Li:
One skilled in the art will appreciate that preferred embodiments of the method of the present invention may take on many different forms depending on the particular application intended. In light of this, the preferred embodiment presented here has been designed primarily to teach many of the important aspects and implications of the method of the present invention in a context which can be readily learned.

Grasshopper:
But Master, how will I use these techniques?

Master Li:
Once taught the method, one skilled in the art will appreciate many alternative and preferred means for implementing individual aspects of it, depending upon their specific purpose.

Re:Antother word perwill...

[Taladar]

And SGML is just a minor syntax change from Lisp S-Expressions which should be even older.

Re:Antother word perwill...

[sumdumass]

but wouldn't that kind of make it an obvious path to the layperson?

A machine being a subset of a chunk of steel is somewhat backwards. You cannot just take my list of tools or ideas, leave a few out and then claim them as your own. You have to create a new function or improvment for them.

Now maybe the fact we are discussing all this prior art (that might not apply) doesn't mean thier patten isn't valid but that it shows it might be overly broad and reaches into too many areas?

Step 1, look for an existing idea or proccess.
Step 2, steal idea or process.
Step 3, ?
step 4, profit.

Re:These insane patents are a good thing...

[djmurdoch]

Its the people who have been saying this for 20 years, and not businesses.

Sorry, I wasn't clear. People have been predicting the imminent collapse of the patent system due to ridiculous patents for about 20 years. It's still people who are doing that, and they're still wrong.

Every one of these bad cases just establishes that this is the way things are. It strengthens the patent system, and makes it more resistant to common sense. Businesses don't care if patents are bad or good; businesses don't care about anything. Businesses are just machines designed to make money. If the patent system rewards ridiculous patents, then businesses will file ridiculous patents.

Do you see any big companies saying that software patents are ridiculous, so they won't file them any more? No, you see them developing defensive portfolios of them. Now, if the USPTO came to its senses and declared all software and business-method patents to be null and void, those companies would suddenly suffer a huge loss in value of their assets. So it's not going to happen.