[plug] MS Patent for XML based word processing files in NZ

[James Devenish]

In message <1074692349.2585.1.camel at syngery>
on Wed, Jan 21, 2004 at 09:39:10PM +0800, Chris Caston wrote:
> Are we at *war* with Microsoft?

I wonder what the patent really covers? If it covers Microsoft's own
namespaces, then they may be forcing customers to move to different
word-processing software for interoperation and archiving. If they are
covering the use of XML as a general-purposes format for encoding word
processing, page layout, or structured document data then they would
they need to demonstrate that 20 years of SGML torture is not prior
art? I wonder about the significance of 'single file'.