Last week, the U.S. Patent Office lifted the 18-month window of secrecy on two patent filings from Microsoft that analysts viewed as attempts by the company aimed at achieving exclusive rights to RSS aggregation technology.
This week, however, the company seems to be singing a different tune.
Sean Lyndersay, The RSS Program Manager Lead for Microsoft, posted a rebuttal to the claim that the company was looking to patent RSS technology for monetary gain:
First, these patents describe specific ways to improve the RSS end-user and developer experience (which we believe are valuable and innovative contributions) — they do not constitute a claim that Microsoft invented RSS.
We have always fully acknowledged the innovators and supporters of RSS, like Dave Winer, Nick Bradbury and many others, and I can say, without hesitation, that I and my colleagues personally have the deepest respect for their invaluable contributions.
From the beginning we have sought an open and reasonable relationship with the RSS community. As one example, we have published various RSS and Atom extensions under a Creative Commons license. These specifications provide proof of our commitment to offer our contributions to the community and evidence of our efforts to advance the technology.
We honestly hope that our work brings benefit to all feed publishers, developers and users, and we’ve been happy with the response we have received from the community so far.
You have to appreciate the transparency here, to be sure.
The RSS team at Microsoft has seemed to waste little time in its efforts to squash any rumors of the technology being “commandeered” for financial gain.
The interesting part now is that Microsoft has committed itself to a position.
There is written record within the company blog, and throughout the blogosphere that the company isn’t seeking to patent RSS technology itself. So now, the company is going to be held to their own standard as the process of improving the “end-user and developer experience” unfolds.
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Joe is a staff writer for Murdok. Visit Murdok for the latest ebusiness news.
