[odf-discuss] Legal problems with MOOX

[marbux]

On 7/8/07, Lars Noodén <lars at umich.edu> wrote:
>
> About 30 minutes into the Groklaw interview with Interview with  Free
> Software Foundation Europe President Georg Greve, he brings up some
> interesting points about short comings in the vague legal promises from
> MS regarding MOOX.
>
> Interview:
>
> http://www.groklaw.net/pdf/GeorgGreve_FSFE_Brussels_20070702.v2.vorbis.ogg
>
> Transcript:
>         http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20070706093041808
>
> Apparently there are still fundamental questions that remain unanswered
> and which block anyone from actually being able to implement MOOX.
>
> In particular, when examining certain grants for "MS necessary claims",
> only the base components are covered and no referenced technologies and
> no extensions to those technologies meaning that all the proprietary
> formats (old versions of .doc for example) are not covered.
>
> In other words, technical shortcomings aside, the licensing is not
> filled out enough to actually allow a non-MS entity to be able to
> implement MOOX.
>

Fully briefed in the Grokdoc EOOXML Objections document, starting in this
section, <
http://www.grokdoc.net/index.php/EOOXML_objections#Patent_rights_to_implement_the_Ecma_376_specification_have_not_been_granted
>.

The relevant IPR documents are just typical Microsoft legal department
weasel-worded IPR statements intended to convey the impression that rights
are granted while actually denying the same rights. For my critiques of
earlier Microsoft IPR documents relating to its Office XML formats, see

 <http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20050330133833843#A4.
("Dissecting Microsoft's 'Patent License'"); and

<http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20051129101457378#Contents>  ("The
Microsoft Covenant Not to Sue -- Sending a Mixed Message").

The truly interesting question a reporter might ask is whether Corel and
Novell are relying on any of those IPR documents
for their own implementations of OOXML.I'd be willing to bet big money that
they are not. To believe otherwise, you would have to believe that their
lawyers are brainless airheads who know nothing about intellectual property
law.
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