[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] Re: The next wave: patent your DTDs
Tim Bray wrote: > > It's interesting to note that the DTD is ambiguous and hence technically > not XML - I'm sure the USPTO will detect this. > > I'm making an effort to let my amusement over the profound silliness of > patenting a DTD counteract my disgust at the business climate that makes > this kind of behavior thinkable. -Tim > You might find this article http://www.around.com/patent.html (reported in slashdot) by James Gleick interesting - it comes with the sincerest endorsement the US Patent Office - they tried to prevent the New York Times from publishing it. I think the following passage gets to the heart of matters - "Meanwhile, the dollars-and-cents reality of running the American patent office has also encouraged the patent explosion. In 1991, the patent office was cut off from general tax revenues and required to subsist entirely on fees for its operating budget. The political argument was that customers should pay for government services. Thus, officials think of their fee-paying patent applicants as their customers: the more the better, again. Examiners know that their year-end bonuses depend on productivity. The people interacting regularly with patent officials and examiners ? their obvious clientele and customer base ? are inventors and inventor representatives. Each morning, as Commissioner Dickinson arrives at his Crystal City office, he walks past a framed poster bearing the motto: Our Patent Mission To Help Our Customers Get Patents " Someone remind me - where would the PC world be now if IBM had patented their ROM BIOS? Sorry to drift off-topic. Francis. *************************************************************************** This is xml-dev, the mailing list for XML developers. To unsubscribe, mailto:majordomo@x...&BODY=unsubscribe%20xml-dev List archives are available at http://xml.org/archives/xml-dev/ ***************************************************************************
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