October 23, 2005

Move Over SCO : Now We Have Someone Else To Hate Even More

Small company makes big claims on XML patents | CNET News.com

A small software developer plans to seek royalties from companies that use XML, the latest example of patent claims embroiling the tech industry.

Let me just be the first to send a big phat:

To Mr. Scientigo [Correction: Scientigo is the name of the company. The big phat "Fuck You!" goes to Scientigo's CEO Doyal Bryant. My apologies to any Mr. Scientigo's out there. This wasn't intended for you.]

Oh, and good luck with that. I'm sure everthing's going to work out for you just as you planned. Smart thinking.

Question: How is it that you are just coming to realize eight(8) years later the claim that XML is infringing upon your patents? Don't you think 1998, or maybe even 1999 would have been a more realistic time for you to "stand up!" and claim patent infringement. XML has been around for WAY TO LONG for you to make any kind of assertion that you feel "violated." Besides, being one who started working with the first stages of XML(via Microsoft's Channel Defintion Format : < Note the date of this submission to the W3C: 3/10/97. While the submission date is 1997-01-28, the date this patent that XML supposedly infringes was awarded on is 1998-11-24) back in 1996(which, given the fact that your stupid enough to believe you can win such a claim causes me to believe that the need exists to suggest to you that 1996 comes BEFORE November of 1998, the month and year your patent went into effect), I would be happy to testify for and in behalf of the XML community that XML most definitely has the claim of prior art with plenty of available documentation(both online and off) that dates well before your filing date to back up such an assertion.

Fucking idiot.

[NOTE: For a more authorative and less vulger opinion on such matters, please see Kurt Cagle's piece "Patent Criminals"]

[UPDATE: In reading the abstract to both patents I couldn't help but notice the following description that are nearly identical in each of these abstracts:

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. This is achieved by expressing data modeling, storage and transfer in a particular non-hierarchical, non-integrated neutral form.

"non-hierarchical, non-integrated"?

Maybe its just me, but if I were to describe the "structure" of XML the phrase "non-hierarchical, non-integrated" would not be the phrase I would choose to use. In fact, I would more than likely choose to use the phrase

"

XML is a hierarchical-based data format that can be used to described integrated/related sets of data in an open, vendor-neutral/non-proprietary format"

In fact the very hierarchical-based nature of XML should be fairly obvious looking at XPath, the language used to reference segments of an XML document who's abstract reads:

XPath is a language for addressing parts of an XML document, designed to be used by both XSLT and XPointer.

Inside of this document you will find the following list of "axes" in which can be used to describe the "relationship" of any element within an XML document to ANY OTHER element within that same [integrated]document:

* the child axis contains the children of the context node

* the descendant axis contains the descendants of the context node; a descendant is a child or a child of a child and so on; thus the descendant axis never contains attribute or namespace nodes

* the parent axis contains the parent of the context node, if there is one

* the ancestor axis contains the ancestors of the context node; the ancestors of the context node consist of the parent of context node and the parent's parent and so on; thus, the ancestor axis will always include the root node, unless the context node is the root node

* the following-sibling axis contains all the following siblings of the context node; if the context node is an attribute node or namespace node, the following-sibling axis is empty

* the preceding-sibling axis contains all the preceding siblings of the context node; if the context node is an attribute node or namespace node, the preceding-sibling axis is empty

* the following axis contains all nodes in the same document as the context node that are after the context node in document order, excluding any descendants and excluding attribute nodes and namespace nodes

* the preceding axis contains all nodes in the same document as the context node that are before the context node in document order, excluding any ancestors and excluding attribute nodes and namespace nodes

* the attribute axis contains the attributes of the context node; the axis will be empty unless the context node is an element

* the namespace axis contains the namespace nodes of the context node; the axis will be empty unless the context node is an element

* the self axis contains just the context node itself

* the descendant-or-self axis contains the context node and the descendants of the context node

* the ancestor-or-self axis contains the context node and the ancestors of the context node; thus, the ancestor axis will always include the root node

NOTE: The ancestor, descendant, following, preceding and self axes partition a document (ignoring attribute and namespace nodes): they do not overlap and together they contain all the nodes in the document.

Maybe its just me, but when I think of ancestors, descendants, siblings, parents, and children the first thing that comes to mind is Genealogy. When I think of Genealogy I think of hierarchy.

Speaking to the integration side of things, when I think of documents I think about integrated, relateds sets of information.

Can someone please explain to me how ANYBODY could possibly take the phrase "non-hierarchical, non-integrated" and think "Geez' that sounds just like XML."

I've said it once, and I'm going to say it again:

Mr. Doyal Bryant, you're a fucking idiot.