I find this hillarious and rather pathetic

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8197990.stm

Funny and kinda sad at the other side...

Quote :

"We are disappointed by the court's ruling," said Microsoft spokesperson Kevin Kutz.
"We believe the evidence clearly demonstrated that we do not infringe and that the i4i patent is invalid. We will appeal the verdict."

Now thats funny, i4i patented something, effectively making XML their 'baby' so to speak, yet because MS is bigger, not only do they steal the idea, but then also try to say that i4i's patent on it is invalid! Hilarious!

The ruling is absolutely ridiculous, as is the US patent office.

In what way android, because if i4i did indeed patent it first, hence it being theirs, then MS deserve everything they get for trying to steal someone elses ideas TBH.

Quote from AndroidXP :

The ruling is absolutely ridiculous, as is the US patent office.

Agree. Only in Amerika is what I want to say..
Well, it seems it's standard nowdays, just sue everything or get sued yourselfe. So if I understand it right now, MS canot sell Word anymore?
What happens then? All new versions of MS will not have Word, or is it just that they canot sell word separatly? Either way, it's still kind of stupid, but again, try finding something reasonable in Amerika's system..

Go Canada!

I thought it was only the problem of saving something in certain format? Therefore remove that from MS Word and then they'd be able to sell it again? no? ... I probably got it all wrong, nevermind!

Personally I don't really care as I don't use that piece of... ubergine

While speaking about Word, I love 2003 version, that one had what I need, but everything after that just became too complicated. I mean, jeez, I just wan to write, not making big-ass diagrams and analyzis in a word writing program Also, 2007 version that makes documents that canot be opened by earlier versions = SUPERFAIL!

Quote from The Very End :

Also, 2007 version that makes documents that canot be opened by earlier versions = SUPERFAIL!

Sometimes you just have to move on, no?
And if you need to, you can always save the file as a pre 2007 document.

As for the patent; have to say it's kind of funny to hear MS can't sell Word anymore.. that's quite a big statement! On the other hand that's just how business / patents work.. if someone else was first than they deserve the credits.. these kind of things happen everyday..

Quote from danthebangerboy :

In what way android, because if i4i did indeed patent it first, hence it being theirs, then MS deserve everything they get for trying to steal someone elses ideas TBH.

Software patents are a very slippery slope and pretty dodgy in general. I think the concept of patents is simply too outdated and unfitting for software, considering how it's easily possible that hundreds of programmers solve the same problem the same way completely independently. Then someone goes ahead and patents that way of solving the problem and suddenly nobody may use that technique freely anymore? What a complete crock of shit. Or on the contrary, maybe 100 programmers solve the same problem in completely different ways, then someone patents "solving the problem" which means everybody else has a patent infringement even though the technology and methods used to solve the problem are completely different.

The US patent office seems to be rather prone to giving out trivial patents, like in this case IIRC a patent for software that can automatically read/generate XML documents (which is an open standard, btw) with no direct XML code editing required from the user. Hell I can write program that violates this patent within a few minutes. That's like patenting "boiling an egg". Yeah screw you cooks all over the US, you're going to pay ME now for using such advanced and novel techniques! Also that patent is from 1998 if I remember correctly, which is a time span that might be OK for mechanical devices but 20 years validity for a software patent is ridiculous. That's many many generations of software.

Quote from Electric Eye :

I thought it was only the problem of saving something in certain format?

Yeah I think so, but ironically enough they only implemented this open format (docx) because other people cried for a open document standard. Though my knowledge of the details in that regard is hazy.

Quote from The Very End :

I mean, jeez, I just wan to write, not making big-ass diagrams and analyzis in a word writing program Also, 2007 version that makes documents that canot be opened by earlier versions = SUPERFAIL!

.docx documents can be opened in 2003 if you install a compatibility update. They even managed to anticipate this and leave open a backdoor that makes the 2003 Office tell you you need to install this update to be able to open 2007 documents.

Quote from The Very End :

While speaking about Word, I love 2003 version, that one had what I need, but everything after that just became too complicated. I mean, jeez, I just wan to write, not making big-ass diagrams and analyzis in a word writing program Also, 2007 version that makes documents that canot be opened by earlier versions = SUPERFAIL!

Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack (free to download) is your friend.

Btw Android, 1998 to 2009 is 11 years not 20 :P

Patents last 20 years minimum as far as I know, which is what I was referring to.

Ahhh ok.

It's not just to download that package or upgrade that package, I use Word in work rellated situations, on work computer that won't let you install these things. For those matters it's a bad sollution, I however agree that it's good they did some work arounds for it, that compatible pack was not out in the start if I remember right. Either way, often on work computer we encountered 07 documents while we were stucked at 03, sure, if it were up to me we would upgraded but it's not allways just that easy on corporation level

Oh and Android, change your signatur plox!

i reacon the judge was a mac fan :P

Why? I like quoting you

If your workplace refuses to roll out that update then you really can't blame Microsoft for introducing the new format, but only the bureaucracy and inflexibility of your IT department. I understand changes are always a risk and need to be carefully planned in bigger corporations, but if you're not even forced to upgrade to the next version and pay for it, but instead can just install a free update...

Quote from AndroidXP :

Why? I like quoting you

If your workplace refuses to roll out that update then you really can't blame Microsoft for introducing the new format, but only the bureaucracy and inflexibility of your IT department. I understand changes are always a risk and need to be carefully planned in bigger corporations, but if you're not even forced to upgrade to the next version and pay for it, but instead can just install a free update...

Damn you Or maybe I should be honored.. well nevermind that lol!

I agree with you, I just don't see why it (07 word) needed to as standard save files as something to compatible with backwards Word versions. Was the differences that big, and a other question, was these changes really nessesary?

But again, that is off topic and it's not actually any usefull to be said about that, maybe I just do discuss pointless But at least for a user like me, it's about writing and beeing able to do some few text tweaks, but I don't see the need or anything upgraded from 03 version that actually was needed.

But that's me, probally other users that have things that they got in the 07 version, but mainly I belive it's just a bad argument from MS (upgrade thingy) to get more money.

dustin was the judge

Quote from The Very End :

I agree with you, I just don't see why it (07 word) needed to as standard save files as something to compatible with backwards Word versions.

I think the reason for that is if you don't put it as default format then nobody is ever going to use it. That would've been quite a lot of wasted effort and time and surely open standard advocators would've cried foul at this (then it would've been "Microsoft grudgingly implemented this open format but now tries to minimise its spread by not making it default").

Quote from AndroidXP :

I think the concept of patents is simply too outdated and unfitting for software, considering how it's easily possible that hundreds of programmers solve the same problem the same way completely independently. Then someone goes ahead and patents that way of solving the problem and suddenly nobody may use that technique freely anymore? What a complete crock of shit. Or on the contrary, maybe 100 programmers solve the same problem in completely different ways, then someone patents "solving the problem" which means everybody else has a patent infringement even though the technology and methods used to solve the problem are completely different.

none of these situations are relevant to how patents work if they get handed out properly
the problem with software patents is clueless patent offices that grant patents that either regard solutions that have been around for years (thus cant be patented because its not new) or are way too generalized (and thus shouldnt be eligible for patenting either)

im sure with the right wording the uselessness of the american patent office would allow me to patent for loops

Word 07 files are much much smaller than the older <2003 .doc files...

Quote from The Very End :

I agree with you, I just don't see why it (07 word) needed to as standard save files as something to compatible with backwards Word versions. Was the differences that big, and a other question, was these changes really nessesary?

But again, that is off topic and it's not actually any usefull to be said about that, maybe I just do discuss pointless But at least for a user like me, it's about writing and beeing able to do some few text tweaks, but I don't see the need or anything upgraded from 03 version that actually was needed.

But that's me, probally other users that have things that they got in the 07 version, but mainly I belive it's just a bad argument from MS (upgrade thingy) to get more money.

They're already making Office 2010, and there's already a beta for it, didn't you know?

By the way, there is a big difference between doc and docx documents. My docx documents are up to 95% smaller in size when compared to the same documents but saved in doc, and IMO they seem more reliable. Of course the size depends on the file, and some docx may get bigger than the doc ones (although very very rare, only happened to me once because there were many images in it, and it wasn't much bigger than the doc one), but there is a really big difference between them.

I like the 2007 version more. Actually, I get lost whenever I use a computer that has Office 2003 installed. Office 2007 looks so much easier to use.

Quote from Shotglass :

none of these situations are relevant to how patents work if they get handed out properly
the problem with software patents is clueless patent offices that grant patents that either regard solutions that have been around for years (thus cant be patented because its not new) or are way too generalized (and thus shouldnt be eligible for patenting either)

im sure with the right wording the uselessness of the american patent office would allow me to patent for loops

Was it Apple tried to patent the double-click a few years ago? Also (again, sorry no sources, but you can probably find it) a company tried to patent something like 'a method of realising 3 dimensional objects on a 2D screen'
and tried to claim royalties on basically every 3D application (including games) ever made.