forwarded message from Ben Trafford

On Tue, 9 Mar 1999, Chris Wilson wrote:

> There has been much discussion of this issue on both of these lists, so I
> thought it might be appropriate to forward this statement to these lists as
> well.
> > "Microsoft agrees that any W3C member or other party will be able to
> > obtain a license under Microsoft's US Patent No. 5,860,073 to implement
> > and use the technology described in W3C Recommendations for Cascading
> > Style Sheets (CSS) and the EXtensible Style Language (XSL) for the purpose
> > of supporting such standards, on a royalty-free basis. One condition of
> > this license shall be the party's agreement to not assert patent rights
> > against Microsoft and other companies for their implementation of those
> > standards. Microsoft expressly reserves all other rights it may have in
> > the material and subject matter of this contribution."

	Chris,

	The caveat of 'reserving all rights' makes me awfully nervous
about this statement. However, considering that prior art can be clearly
show in this instance, Microsoft's patent appears to be legally
indefensible. 

	Perhaps you could bring that up to whomever in your company
approved the submission of the patent, before you folks find yourselves
in some nasty legal battle.

------------
Ben Trafford

*not speaking on behalf of any corporation

Received on Friday, 12 March 1999 04:22:19 UTC