MS' XML Patent Machine patent in doubt

Related link: http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/3312091

The technology behind Microsoft's patents and applications related to word processor documents in a single XML file and multiple scripts in a single XML file is fascinating.

Their wonderful Extensible Markup Language Patent Machine can generate a customized patent application for anything that can be collected into a single XML file, and "vocabulary miners" are systematically working through every known class of data: spreadsheets, config files, media, graphics, financial data, patches, virues etc., submitting the auto-generated patent applications to the scrupulous attention of the Royal Tongan Patent Office.

On and on, the machine diligently chugs through the whole dictionary. Fortunately, patent offices have their own patented rubber-stamping machines to cope.

"A personal computer on every desktop and an XML patent on every noun" is the company's new slogan, according to information recovered from a leaked company word processing file on a different topic. "Innovative research has never been easier!", claimed a spokesman from the Machine Translation project.

But in a cruel twist of fate, it seems that this there is already some prior art which would prevent the XML Patent Machine itself from being patented. And Microsoft might find a challenge from Apple, who are assembling iPods into a SETI-like supercomputer to generate patents for everything using two files. Apple spokeman, Kevin Spline spins this as "You can make a better user interface with two files, because humans have two eyes! Its just basic math."

Open Source advocates have charged that this is just an attempt to force everyone to adopt Microsoft's database-based file systems by making files unworkable. "No, no, that is our strategy for email" a Microsoft representative said, speaking on terms of strict fictitiousness.

In a related development, leaders from developing countries applauded the new patent: a source close to one leader said "This will stifle the development of a vibrant indigenous software sector, depress an imaginative middle class and promote brain-drain. We don't need those kind of trouble-makers." An interesting analysis from The Economist magazine claims that the more enlightened leaders of newly industrialized nations are worried that unless the developed nations can keep up their rate of monopolistic appropriation aided by various Free Trade negotiations, the West may not have any money to buy anything and will need pocket money.

Is "I saw it first!" really the way to organize a peaceful world?