RSS Patents?

Business 2.0 reports on Microsoft patent applications for RSS. I'm not a big fan of software patents. Most of them are completely indefensible and in most cases they tend to slow progressive technologies. I agree with some that say this is more of defensive move on MS' part than anything else. By filing the patents, any patent troll holding a previously filed application will have no choice but to make themselves known. That will force the rest of the industry to trot out prior art. It's clear that MS, and the rest of the software industry for that matter, will be reliant on RSS as a key component to future application development. If this is a preemptive move, it could make sense on MS' part. Microsoft recently lost a high profile ruling regarding a patent that covered the embedding of multimedia elements in web documents from a multimedia spin-off of the University of California. The changes made to the Internet Explorer browser as a result of the ruling forced developers to completely re-code documents in order to properly display embedded multimedia content. I know of many companies that are still in the process, months later, of re-coding pages that have embedded Quicktime and Java content. If you look at the whole portfolio that Eolas holds, it can be a pretty sobering thought. It looks as if Eolas exists only to hold and defend their patents. They have no products that I am aware of that put them to use. For instance

"U.S. Patent 6,616,701, Filed on May 23, 1998, Issued September 9, 2003

This invention turns full-motion video into a fully-interactive experience. Imagine, for example, being able to view a movie trailer and being able to click on individual actors, as they move across the screen, to bring upWeb pages with more information on their bios, other films, etc. Or imagine that you're watching a video of the 1996 NBA finals, and being able to click directly on any of the players at any time to retrieve their stats, where they are now, etc. The zMap technology makes all that possible, and more."

Imagine it? I don't have to. Hotspots in video like QTVR movies and more have been around for as long as I can remember. I still have an application that I bought in 1996 that has this feature (2 years before the original filing). Surely there was some prior art somewhere that demonstrated this before the awarding of this patent.

I believe in protecting intellectual property, however, the USPTO has horrible track record of approving patent applications for software that, in my opinion, should have never seen the light of day. It's spawned a whole new industry whose sole purpose is to acquire patents and then apply pressure on companies of all size to give up license fees. If the thousands of start-ups basing development of new web applications on RSS are faced with the prospect of being strong-armed by patent trolls, the whole industry will suffer. Those that survive will be forced to pass those costs along to their customers. Only time will tell what will happen with the RSS patents. It's certainly something we will need to keep a keen eye on as we move forward.