[odf-discuss] On covenants

[Pamela Jones]

He's talking *legally* meaningless, and you are totally missing all his 
legal arguments, because it isn't your native language and it's over 
your head.

I agree it's pointless to continue.

Alex Hudson wrote:
> marbux wrote:
>> On 11/6/06, Alex Hudson <alex at stratagia.co.uk> wrote:
>>> As I said, I don't read it that way, and have no problem understanding
>>> what "necessary patent claims" are - and, given the wide usage of the
>>> term (e.g., IETF, W3C), I don't think I'm alone.
>> You are ignoring context again. The CNS does not say "necessary patent
>> claims;" it says "patent claims necessary to conform to the technical
>> specifications."
> 
> No; I don't think it's ignorance. It makes no difference.
> 
> It really isn't worth arguing the point with me; you cannot convince me
> that anyone, aside from you, would interpret the CNS to say "legal text
> which must be included in the software for it to implement OpenXML". It
> is a meaningless statement, and I would challenge you to find someone
> else who supports that interpretation.
> 
> If it were such an obvious problem, I would have thought that Larry
> Rosen, Andy Updegrove and the other lawyers who've looked at this would
> have picked up on it, and it seems an obviously different interpretation
> from one which you've held previously:
> 
>     "In the first step, Microsoft makes promises only regarding its
>     "patent claims necessary to conform" to its file format
>     specification. I assume that somewhat bewildering phrase means that
>     Microsoft is making no promises regarding patent claims not
>     necessarily infringed by a "conforming part" of a software application."
> 
>     -- http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20051129101457378
> 
> 
> Did you later reprimand yourself for implying the word "infringed" into
> the CNS, or was your change of mind for a different reason?
> 
> I'm quite happy to grant that the MS covenant is not as broad as the Sun
> one, but to argue that it is actually meaningless I think is wrong.
>