The Intellectual Property Office of New Zealand has granted Microsoft its controversial patent over the use of XML in word processing documents, but the chair of the Open Source Society, Peter Harrison, says he will be lodging an appeal as soon as possible. An Auckland man, Michael Seadon, also says he has prior art that may prove the use of XML in word processing documents has been going on long before Microsoft asked for its patent to be granted.
"On the very day the W3C ratified XML 1.0 I sent well over 10,000 word-processor documents to a UK pharmaceutical company using XML." Seadon says he will also be lodging an appeal against the patent. However, Harrison says he doesn't believe Seadon's find qualifies as prior art in this case. "The patent is quite specifically about Microsoft's XML schema for word processing and unfortunately it's not likely that [Seadon's] documents meet that criterion." Harrison says Microsoft's attempt to patent an XML schema flies in the face of the reason XML was created.
News source: Computerworld
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