From News.com (via Slashdot):
Charlotte, N.C.-based Scientigo owns two patents (No. 5,842,213 and No. 6,393,426) covering the transfer of “data in neutral forms.” These patents, one of which was applied for in 1997, are infringed upon by the data-formatting standard XML, Scientigo executives assert.
Scientigo intends to “monetize” this intellectual property, Scientigo CEO Doyal Bryant said this week.
Companies that monetize intellectual property like this deserve to be put out of business. Period.
At least it’s unlikely that they’re going to win any cases. But damage will still be done. And the lawyers will be laughing all the way to the bank.
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Our project manager mentioned this to the team, and made the comment that it’s a good thing we didn’t have his old manager. Apparently his automatic response to any news like this was to tell the team to immediately rip out any ‘offending’ code regardless of the validity of the claim or any pending outcome.
Considering that our last major redesign was specifically to use XML as our transport and storage format…