EPT.docX is dead! Yay! - Page 3
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Chuiu
3470 Posts
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vAltyR
United States581 Posts
On August 13 2009 03:14 Kau wrote: I hate when people send me docx's. Now if we could get everyone to use .odt, the world would be a better place. QFT. For the most part, though, .rtf does the trick quite well, since everything supports it. | ||
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Amber[LighT]
United States5078 Posts
On August 13 2009 03:14 Kau wrote: I hate when people send me docx's. Now if we could get everyone to use .odt, the world would be a better place. lol our company promotes using .odt and makes their own 'word program' to specifically default to .odt. Maybe I don't like the program we use, but odt is a waste of time. | ||
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StorrZerg
United States13922 Posts
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Polyphasic
United States841 Posts
On August 13 2009 03:26 Last Romantic wrote: Will hopefully be overturned; I find this a bit silly. i agree that this is a retarded ruling. it's like saying that Microsoft Visual Studios is banned because it allows you to read code that might be copyrighted and written by other people. | ||
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ShadowDrgn
United States2497 Posts
On August 13 2009 05:27 Polyphasic wrote: i agree that this is a retarded ruling. it's like saying that Microsoft Visual Studios is banned because it allows you to read code that might be copyrighted and written by other people. I don't understand your comparison at all. The jury not only decided that Microsoft infringed the patent, but that they did so willfully, which means that Microsoft knew about the patent when they designed .docx and infringed it anyway. The patent was filed in 1994, before the term XML even existed so this isn't a situation where Microsoft got blindsided by a patent troll holding a new patent that no one knew about. I don't know the exact details behind the case, but it's quite possible that Microsoft engineers read this patent and essentially copied its methods. That's exactly what patent law is designed to protect against. So now Microsoft has 60 days to buy/license the patent or patch Word to stop using .docx and start selling the patched versions. Their stay of injunction already got denied by the district court, and appeals take a lot longer than 60 days to be heard and resolved. Chances are Microsoft will just buy these guys off and we'll never hear about it again. | ||
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Zato-1
Chile4253 Posts
That said, I also hate the .docx file format, so... in this case, I'm not complaining. | ||
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fusionsdf
Canada15390 Posts
On August 13 2009 05:41 ShadowDrgn wrote: I don't understand your comparison at all. The jury not only decided that Microsoft infringed the patent, but that they did so willfully, which means that Microsoft knew about the patent when they designed .docx and infringed it anyway. The patent was filed in 1994, before the term XML even existed so this isn't a situation where Microsoft got blindsided by a patent troll holding a new patent that no one knew about. I don't know the exact details behind the case, but it's quite possible that Microsoft engineers read this patent and essentially copied its methods. That's exactly what patent law is designed to protect against. So now Microsoft has 60 days to buy/license the patent or patch Word to stop using .docx and start selling the patched versions. Their stay of injunction already got denied by the district court, and appeals take a lot longer than 60 days to be heard and resolved. Chances are Microsoft will just buy these guys off and we'll never hear about it again. ![[image loading]](http://i.zdnet.com/blogs/msfti4ic.jpg) you dont find that just a tiny bit ridiculous? | ||
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ShadowDrgn
United States2497 Posts
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zulu_nation8
China26351 Posts
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Slithe
United States985 Posts
As a result, a lot of these new technologies go completely unused for years. The companies just sit on the patents without even using them. And because of the wide net that they cast with their patent, you get ridiculous situations like this. Going with the car analogy, it's like someone patenting their idea of a vague shape of a car, some object with a body and 4 wheels that moves around, and then claiming royalties for every new car design that comes out. It's really an unfortunate situation. The general public cannot reap the full benefit of the innovations, and the inventors can't even see their ideas get put to use. | ||
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fusionsdf
Canada15390 Posts
On August 13 2009 05:51 ShadowDrgn wrote: You can't just paste figure 1 and call it ridiculous. It's just an illustration with no legally enforceable weight. wat thats what the patent entails. I'm not saying its ridiculous as in the artist sucks or something or the image isnt in high enough resolution. I'm saying thats the extent of the patent (ie data and metacode held separately and later combined) and being able to patent that IS ridiculous. | ||
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miseiler
United States1389 Posts
I don't evangelise open source very much in day to day life, but sending me docx files just turns my crank. Fortunately, since I do all the data analysis in my group, I can demand people stop using such formats and they'll listen. | ||
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ShadowDrgn
United States2497 Posts
20. A method for producing from a document made up of metacodes and content, a map of metacodes and their addresses of use in association with mapped content of the document and stored in distinct map storage means, the method comprising: (a) reading the content of the document until a metacode is found; (b) copying the content and storing the copied content in a mapped content storage; (c) noting in the map the found metacode and its position in the content; (d) repeating the processing of (a)-(c) until the entire document has been processed; and then (e) providing the document as the content of the document separately from the metacode map of the document Was that new and nonobvious in 1994? The USPTO apparently thought so. Does it sound ridiculous today? Yeah, but that doesn't matter. | ||
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LaSt)ChAnCe
United States2179 Posts
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Jibba
United States22883 Posts
On August 13 2009 05:10 StorrZerg wrote: I like odt cause well its free and i'm a poor college student that can't afford Microsoft products yet. Your college doesn't give you free copies of Office 2007? | ||
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LaSt)ChAnCe
United States2179 Posts
On August 13 2009 06:13 Jibba wrote: Your college doesn't give you free copies of Office 2007? yea, that's how i got my home copy of office...contact your school about it | ||
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tec27
United States3718 Posts
On August 13 2009 03:50 -fj. wrote: Patent law -_- Esp. When it is applied to computers, it mostly just prevents people from doing the best work they can... Its like a limit on what you can make, for example people have to use worse / less efficient methods of rendering shadows in 3D games because the best ways are patented. Capitalism does this all the time.. Makes things shitty for everyone just so 1 person can make money. Planned obsolescence, anyone? You made sense until that last point. Patents are not a creation of capitalism, they are a creation of governments. They do allow people to make more money than they otherwise would, but only through a grant of monopoly by governments, not through market power. Anyway, this is just another example of why software patents, and patents in general, do not fulfill their goal of increasing innovation and idea creation. This is a pretty good read on the subject of patents/copyright, I think: http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/againstnew.htm | ||
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Ronald_McD
Canada807 Posts
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dhe95
United States1213 Posts
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