Tim Marman's Loosely Coupled

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• Licensing the Office 2007 UI - what is Microsoft's IP strategy?

  Jensen Harris announced that the Office 2007 Ribbon UI can be licensed . For the last year or so, one of the questions I've been asked again and again has been: "Can I use the new Office user interface in my own product?" I have to be honest - I'm a bit baffled at this whole thing. Note, they are not providing any common controls for the Ribbon. Rather, they are "licensing ... intellectual property rights in the UI (which cover both design and functionality) and offering a comprehensive Design Guidelines document that is a roadmap for developers implementing the UI." The license is free as long as you follow the guidelines, and is intended "[f]or those that want to build their own UI that takes advantage of our design guidelines." The reason, as Jensen describes, is that "the new Office user interface was a huge investment by Microsoft and the resulting intellectual property belongs to Microsoft." The next question, of course, are what rights does Microsoft actually have with the Ribbon... Posted Nov 27 2006, 07:24 AM by Tim with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: Technology, Intellectual Property, Software Development, Things that bother me, Things that amuse me, Copyright, Patent, Microsoft

• Balthesar's "Rich-Media Application" patent

  Interesting article in Information Week about another broad patent which may lead to a RIM-like showdown. Another big patent fight may be looming. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has granted a broad patent that could force tens of thousands of businesses to pay royalties for processes that have become standard at many companies. The patent awarded to Neil Balthaser and his tiny San Francisco Web-site development company, Balthaser Online, covers the use of rich-media applications over the Internet. The patent--issued on Valentine's Day--covers all rich-media technology implementations, including those that employ tools such as Flash, Flex, Java, Ajax, and XAML, when the rich-media application is accessed by any device over the Internet. Balthaser doesn't claim his patent covers the tools themselves, only the rich-media Internet apps they help create. Examples range from interior decorating software to Google Earth to streaming audio. Read the issued patent . According to the article... Posted Mar 07 2006, 04:00 AM by Tim with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: Technology, Intellectual Property, Software Development, AJAX, Patent