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News of Microsoft's move to file XML-related patents in Europe and New Zealand is being seen in some quarters as an attempt by the Redmond, Washington-based software company to erect barriers to competitors seeking greater compatibility with the company's market-dominating office suite. "When Microsoft added an XML format to Word, suddenly Word's format got technically a lot easier to reverse engineer," Rob Helm, director of research for Directions on Microsoft, an independent research firm in Kirkland, Washington, told TechNewsWorld.
Re: Microsoft Files for XML Patents
Posted by: DaveHowe 2004-08-30 03:49:32 In reply to: John P. Mello Jr.
The problem here isn't what will happen if MS fails to get the patent (which might be quite a good thing) but what will happen if they do. Will we see a whole slew of file-format patents being used to prevent interop to other packages, to protect MS's dwindling monopoly pool?
