Re: Microsoft Style Sheet Patent

On Tue, 26 Jan 1999, Robin Bailey wrote:

> At 15:26 25-01-99 -0500, you wrote:
> >Business as usual?:
> >
> >
> > US5860073: Style sheets for publishing system
> ...
> > Applicant(s):
> > Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, WA
> >
> >Issued/Filed Dates:
> > Jan. 12, 1999 / July 17, 1995
> 
> If I read this correctly, doesn't it mean that MS have now been issued with
> a patent which they filed for in 95, when it was probably thought of as a
> document/spreadsheet concept, rather than the cascading stylesheet (HTML)
> concept which has developed since then?

	No. The use of stylesheets to render a document has been in the
computer industry for quite a while. It's existed in markup (as in SGML)
since the early to mid 80s, I believe.

	This is an old idea. Reading their patent closely, they're
attempting to claim ownership of an idea that predates any use they've had
for it by at least fifteen years.

--->Ben Trafford