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Patent Applications in the RSS space

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It's always fun when a story hits the blogosphere while you're stuck on a plane. :)

This will be short, because I'm connecting over a 14.4K modem line (I have the deepest sympathy for folks who still do this every day!), but I just want to say a few basic things about the RSS-related patent applications mentioned in the article and elsewhere.

First, these patents describe specific ways to improve the RSS end-user and developer experience (which we believe are valuable and innovative contributions) -- they do not constitute a claim that Microsoft invented RSS.

We have always fully acknowledged the innovators and supporters of RSS, like Dave Winer, Nick Bradbury and many others, and I can say, without hesitation, that I and my colleagues personally have the deepest respect for their invaluable contributions.

From the beginning we have sought an open and reasonable relationship with the RSS community. As one example, we have published various RSS and Atom extensions under a Creative Commons license. These specifications provide proof of our commitment to offer our contributions to the community and evidence of our efforts to advance the technology. We honestly hope that our work brings benefit to all feed publishers, developers and users, and we've been happy with the response we have received from the community so far.

Finally, as a number of commenters have noted, we are far from the only company to apply for patent protection in this space. Other companies, including Apple and Google, have apparently also applied for patents. Applying for a patent on your innovation is common industry practice, and one which, by incenting and protecting the companies and people involved, encourages everyone to contribute to the community.

I hope this helps put our position in perspective. I want to reiterate that my team and I are fully committed to RSS and feed syndication technologies in general and to the community. Please post any additional questions (I'm sure you didn't need an invitation :), and I'll get back to them in the new year.

Thanks,

Sean Lyndersay
Program Manager Lead, RSS

Comments

  • Anonymous
    December 23, 2006
    Please go steal somebody else's ideas, thank you. RSS is not M$'s to steal or patent!

  • Anonymous
    December 23, 2006
    This blog post will be cold comfort if someone gets sued by Microsoft, as it is not legally binding, and therefore, meaningless. Refer to the disclaimer on this blog.

  • Anonymous
    December 23, 2006
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    December 23, 2006
    The only body that can clean the pattent mess is the European Union. And I hope they will do this soon. This is ridiculous!!!

  • Anonymous
    December 23, 2006
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    December 24, 2006
    re: innovators. Dave Winer knows he didn't invent RSS. RSS as we know it was invented by some people at Netscape. He re-worked it (changing tag names and so on) into the RSS we know to day. Besides, it's common knowledge that Microsoft's CDF pre-dates both Netscape's RSS and Dave's scriptingnews format by about a year. Not that that means anything, in this case.

  • Anonymous
    December 24, 2006
    I'm still confused how IE7's RSS implementation differs from Safari and how this patent manages to not apply to Safari while applying to IE7's implementation.

  • Anonymous
    December 24, 2006
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    December 24, 2006
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    December 24, 2006
    Microsoft is absolutely shameless on this one. The effrontery is astounding. "I can say, without hesitation, that I and my colleagues personally have the deepest respect for their invaluable contributions." Oh, please. Where is your PR department on this one, guys? Stupid, stupid, stupid move. This is so typical of Microsoft. No wonder people hate it so much. I mean, sheesh--gimme a major, major break.

  • Anonymous
    December 24, 2006
    Applying for patents for every facet of the tech a company uses has become a requirement to aid in defending  themselves against the patent infringement cases brought by other parties. Blame the patent offices for allowing this situation to arise as any company foolish enough to try and unilaterally adopt a non ip-stockpiling attitude might win points with the open source community but they're going to find themselves on the sticky end of the law suit stick.

  • Anonymous
    December 24, 2006
    We first built a proof-of-concept Zeepe-based application back in early 2004 which we called iMunch: "an RSS news aggregator, (tabbed) web browser and blogwriting tool, all rolled into one. The application provides for a seamless experience for browsing news feeds and the web, and for writing weblog entries."    http://www.zeepe.com/zeepeinfo/zeepeapps/imunch/ Because Zeepe leverages MSFT's web browsing platform, I have archived loads of emails to various members of the IE team saying "Tabs! Auto feed discovery! Aggregation! Go and have look at this!" - and iMunch is still listed as an application sample on the Zeepe site. I'm not sure that there's anything much that the IE and RSS teams can now claim as their 'innovation' that we hadn't already made publicly available to be copied as required. However I don't particularly care, other than flagging a requirement to - once again - be acknowledged as prior art on any infringing  MSFT patent application.

  • Anonymous
    December 24, 2006
    Developers, Developers, Developers. Yep, you just got under the skin of every one of them in one move. It's like you are pushing developers away from Windows by behaving the way everyone expects Microsoft to behave. I'd like to describe your actions with one word, but you would edited it out, but I'm sure you know the word.

  • Anonymous
    December 24, 2006
    Thanks, great to hear the clarification. MS recently has been doing a good job with user experience or rather user relations, even if this was spurred by the competition of Apple and Google - keep it up nonetheless. Microsoft is far from the perfect company, but I think a lot of the bad press it recieves is not warranted. People are so easy to come to the defense of Apple, but if Microsoft makes the tiniest of errors - it's an explosion of paranoia and accusations. If Apple had filed a patent (and I believe they have), people would not have made such a commotion and would probably find some way of taking the fault off of Apple. However, with Microsoft, it's the extreme opposite - MS is guilty until proven innocent, and Apple is just always plain innocent. We need to treat all companies on the same level, having programming experience I can tell you that Apple is far from perfect as well, and Apple is doing nothing more to help users, it instead relies on its cult base to help protect its future. Whereas Microsoft relies on competition to keep it in check, and to some degree it's slowly working on improving user experience. Again MS is far from perfect, but I think they're learning their lesson - treat the user nicely, whine & dine the user with free services and great user interactivity/experience.

  • Anonymous
    December 24, 2006
    As I have read the patent application at least 5 times I see no innovation in that application that was not already being done in the space. Did your team actually research for prior art on this. Even cursory look would have resulted in your team not moving forth on the application. Microsoft and your team are playing catch up in the RSS sector becasue the powers to be realized that they were being left in the dust. What you have essentially done here is collectively flipped us all the middle finger, and decided that you are going to try and claim innovation in the RSS space that you rightfully in my opinion can not claim.

  • Anonymous
    December 24, 2006
    I find this abruptly absurd. Software patents are pure garbage nowadays. The chance Microsoft actually patents something they have innovated is the same chance I have if I dropped a penny in the ocean, and planned to go find it after 8 years.

  • Anonymous
    December 24, 2006
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    December 24, 2006
    IMO, it's a waste of time for Microsoft employees to explain themselves to the haters with blog entries like this.  The haters are going to hate regardless; they're quite an irrational bunch.  Hypocrites too.  Microsoft and Apple do the exact same thing, and the haters demonize the former while worshipping the latter.  It's pathetic.  Were I a Microsoft employee I wouldn't bother writing blog entries justifying my actions to a bunch if irrational hypocrites like most of the above posters are.

  • Anonymous
    December 24, 2006
    I second that Brutus. It's funny how these folks are slamming Microsoft while using Windows and better yet, most using IE.

  • Anonymous
    December 24, 2006
    "IMO, it's a waste of time for Microsoft employees to explain themselves to the haters with blog entries like this.  The haters are going to hate regardless; they're quite an irrational bunch.  Hypocrites too.  Microsoft and Apple do the exact same thing, and the haters demonize the former while worshipping the latter.  It's pathetic.  Were I a Microsoft employee I wouldn't bother writing blog entries justifying my actions to a bunch if irrational hypocrites like most of the above posters are." When you are a company that has acted in bad faith since day one, this is the kind of reaction you get. MS has been hostile to competitors and end users alike,,,it's a cause and effect world so deal with it boy.

  • Anonymous
    December 24, 2006
    It should be "my colleagues and I..." not "I and my colleagues..."

  • Anonymous
    December 24, 2006
    While there is no excuse for unprofessionalism, what exactly does it consist of? Based on some recently depicted examples, it seems as though professionalism is being defined as the ability to operate/communicate with out regard for the factual accuracy of ones premise.

  • Anonymous
    December 25, 2006
    Come on people, learn how to read a friggin pattent application.  You can't look at a single claim of the patent, the patent consists of ALL the claims, and all the claims must be present for the patent to be enforced. Merely having an RSS feed doesn't infringe a patent that includes a claim of having an RSS feed. Patents are written in a way that makes claims from general to specific.  Concentrating on one claim only makes you seem ignorant, or deliberately deceptive.  

  • Anonymous
    December 25, 2006
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    December 25, 2006
    "You can't look at a single claim of the patent, the patent consists of ALL the claims, and all the claims must be present for the patent to be enforced." You are confusing elements of claims with (independent) claims of patents. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claim_%28patent%29

  • Anonymous
    December 25, 2006
    As has already been mentioned, there are numerous examples of RSS implementation equal to and often superior to that which MS is claiming is their patent. MS will pursue these patents because they lack the humility to back down and do the right, no less honest, thing.

  • Anonymous
    December 25, 2006
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    December 25, 2006
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    December 25, 2006
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    December 25, 2006
    On the other hand it may be a good idea to just dump the patents... Because if they go through, all the work to get web developers like myself to think that you are actually thinking about a "community" of people who not only use your software but develop for it.  With the release of IE7 I was pleaed regarding the much better support of css and other features such as png support... as far as I'm concerned if the patents go through Microsoft will return to its part as an outcast to myself and other developers.   Can you for once just leave your hands off and let the internet thrive and grow instead of trying to harness in some technology, control and drive it into the ground?

  • Anonymous
    December 25, 2006
    IMHO, rss - 4 peoples, not 4 corporations ;)

  • Anonymous
    December 26, 2006
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    December 26, 2006
    "When I can go anywhere and buy a computer from Dell, H-P, Sony, etc that has no OS on it, I might begin to change my mind. That situation is because of, and enforced by, Microsoft". I've got news for you.  A computer with no OS on it WON'T SELL.

  • Anonymous
    December 26, 2006
    Seriously, What!?!?!? I agree with MarinerDaddy... when I can buy a PC without Windows included, then and only then, will I have a shadow of a belief, that MS is in the innovation business, vs. the monopoly business. I was generating RSS feeds before IE could render them! what a joke

  • Anonymous
    December 26, 2006
    To truly commit to RSS, let the community work organically without MS.

  • Anonymous
    December 27, 2006
    "* For example, the first (independent) claim of the 20060288011 application is:

  1. A computer-implemented method comprising: presenting a user interface having a subscription control to enable a user to subscribe to a feed; receiving, via the user interface, a user selection of the subscription control; and responsive to receiving the user's selection, initiating a feed subscription process. Given that this claim allegedly describes a specific novel and non-obvious method of user-initiated feed subscription, perhaps you could rewrite it for us as the general method of user-initiated feed subscription so that we can compare the two and more clearly see the novel and non-obvious contribution to the technology and art that the former discloses." -plh I agree. Sean, you mention that Apple and Google have applied for patents as well.  If they're as vague as this one, I hope they all get rejected too. If Google, Microsoft, or Apple were to obtain the patent, I would EXPECT you to give it to the public domain and never file a lawsuit over it.

  • Anonymous
    December 29, 2006
    Not for nothing, but Dell has been selling no OS machines for a few years...

  • Anonymous
    December 29, 2006
    @MarinerDaddy: "I've got news for you.  A computer with no OS on it WON'T SELL." You're wrong. There's thing called Gnoo/Leen'oox. And people who want to use it, they will buy a computer without an OS. It is possible in Croatia (computers come with FreeDOS -- meaning, as good as with no OS) and I bought such a laptop. And installed Leen'oox on it. It costed around additional 1000 Croatian Kunas for XP Home Edition, and the laptop itself costed 6200kn (all taxes applied). Computer definitely will sell with no OS.

  • Anonymous
    December 29, 2006
    Hi, I'm a student writing a report on a project called twinerss.com . This is a service that (probably :) will combine rss search and reading into one service. I'm looking for some information on revenues that such services may provide, for instance by running ads. Are there any sites dedicated to RSS marketing? thanks a lot Marcin

  • Anonymous
    January 21, 2007
    In my opinion Merely having an RSS feed doesn't infringe a patent that includes a claim of having an RSS feed

  • Anonymous
    February 02, 2007
    I am off to the party tonight and will update this post after.  Tomorrow hopefully will be better?

  • Anonymous
    February 05, 2007
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    June 20, 2007
    Having an RSS feed also means that someone may also steal your content from it. And publish it is own. This is the most annoying thing with these RSS parsers which are plenty at the market.

  • Anonymous
    July 07, 2007
    I completely agree with fencing. There is too much theft nowadays from RSS done by spammers

  • Anonymous
    July 11, 2007
    I agree fully with what Sean K  just said. these folks are slamming Microsoft while using Windows and better yet, most using IE.

  • Anonymous
    July 27, 2007
    Let's just say MS is refining the RSS invention!

  • Anonymous
    August 01, 2007
    I just hope that this will lead to continued developments in RSS.

  • Anonymous
    August 07, 2007
    I agree more must be done about the spamming issue.

  • Anonymous
    October 06, 2007
    And I hope they will do this soon. This is ridiculous!!!

  • Anonymous
    January 18, 2008
    I completely agree with fencing. There is too much theft nowadays from RSS done by spammers

  • Anonymous
    January 18, 2008
    I just hope that this will lead to continued developments in RSS.

  • Anonymous
    January 18, 2008
    In my opinion Merely having an RSS feed doesn't infringe a patent that includes a claim of having an RSS feed

  • Anonymous
    January 18, 2008
    This blog post will be cold comfort if someone gets sued by Microsoft, as it is not legally binding, and therefore, meaningless. Refer to the disclaimer on this blog.

  • Anonymous
    January 18, 2008
    I'm still confused how IE7's RSS implementation differs from Safari and how this patent manages to not apply to Safari while applying to IE7's implementation.

  • Anonymous
    January 27, 2008
    RSS vs Atom : which is the future favourite??

  • Anonymous
    March 20, 2008
    I'd go with Atom ;) Fortunately it's nothing like the blueray vs HD duel.

  • Anonymous
    April 24, 2008
    I don't see why you shouldn't be able to apply for patents protection for RSS related innovations or any other software innovation come to that.

  • Anonymous
    June 01, 2008
    Hi, I just found this web site that lets you download patents as PDF files for free. Its http://www.patentretriever.com/ Thought I'd share this little gem with those that are interested. John

  • Anonymous
    June 02, 2008
    Nice to see so good informations. Very good blog.

  • Anonymous
    June 10, 2008
    Its really good to see all the above given comments, all this information is very helpfull for me. Thanks.

  • Anonymous
    July 01, 2008
    Great article. It`s realy worth reading. I wish you further successes

  • Anonymous
    July 06, 2008
    Merely having an RSS feed doesn't infringe a patent that includes a claim of having an RSS feed. Patents are written in a way that makes claims from general to specific.  Concentrating on one claim only makes you seem ignorant, or deliberately deceptive.  

  • Anonymous
    July 08, 2008
    Developers need to be compensated for their work and need a way to protect it. Just like authors need a copyright.

  • Anonymous
    August 04, 2008
    Great article, keep up the good work

  • Anonymous
    September 27, 2008
    I don't see why you shouldn't be able to apply for patents protection for RSS related innovations or any other software innovation come to that.

  • Anonymous
    October 23, 2008
    I thank information they were useful

  • Anonymous
    October 31, 2008
    Nice to see so good informations. Very good blog.

  • Anonymous
    February 13, 2009
    Where do you go to patent a product or do product patent search?Are there any warnings? Ex? If I do a patent search could not someone at patent office see my idea and tell a friend who could then patent before I finish my patent search?

  • Anonymous
    June 11, 2009
    I don't see why you shouldn't be able to apply for patents protection for RSS related innovations or any other software innovation come to that.

  • Anonymous
    June 30, 2009
    Nice to see so good informations. Very good blog.

  • Anonymous
    July 16, 2009
    Thanks for the service, i will show my friends, and many greeting from GERMANY!!

  • Anonymous
    July 16, 2009
    Thanks for the service, i will show my friends, and many greeting from GERMANY!!

  • Anonymous
    August 12, 2009
    Does this mean I can't publish my web based RSS reader/publisher app until all RSS patents being resolved? (so I know who should I pay for my clip ;) It's been lodged in 2006, do you know anything further?

  • Anonymous
    August 18, 2009
    Patents are written in a way that makes claims from general to specific, but by the way this article is great. Cool work, thanks for sharing.

  • Anonymous
    October 18, 2009
    Witam popieram Bila Gatesa. Pozdrawiam

  • Anonymous
    October 20, 2009
    Thanks Yeah, I have to comment on that too- what was with the wall?

  • Anonymous
    October 27, 2009
    If I do a patent search could not someone at patent office see my idea and tell a friend who could then patent.Thanks.

  • Anonymous
    October 27, 2009
    By the way this article is great. Cool work, thanks for sharing...

  • Anonymous
    November 01, 2009
    Thanks for thos information and stuff. well done

  • Anonymous
    November 04, 2009
    i like also atom....very helpfull information

  • Anonymous
    November 09, 2009
    Thanks. this stuff doesnt work any more dudes.. can smebody suggest smething else…

  • Anonymous
    January 04, 2010
    Great job my boddy. Great thing i think :)

  • Anonymous
    January 07, 2010
    so many people, a lot of opinion ...

  • Anonymous
    January 18, 2010
    Great article! I think Steve is right, let the community work organically.

  • Anonymous
    February 10, 2010
    There is a new show called The Generations Project. Their next episode is about a young, female, African American law student who learns about the life of her ancestor who held the patent for the bridal bit. It's a really cool show and looks like a great episode. I just thought you would be interested. The show will air on this coming Monday night on BYU Television at 8pm MST. This is the show's Facebook page, if you want to know more. http://www.facebook.com/pages/Generations-Project/139488246786?v=info

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  • Anonymous
    March 21, 2010
    Great article. Very interesting. Thanks

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    April 19, 2010
    Nice blog... thanks for giving this blog.. its very informatic one about the patent... http://lawwave.com/patent_research.php

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