[ Thanks to Barry Dale for this link.
]
“South African free software advocates yesterday served patent
‘request to surrender’ papers on Microsoft SA’s legal
representatives, urging the company to withdraw a patent
(ZA200303346) it holds on XML-based word processing. The patent,
titled “Word processing document stored in a single XML file that
may be manipulated by applications that understand XML”, suggests
that the software giant invented and owns the process of XML-based
word processing.“Microsoft applied for the patent in April 2004, and it was
granted two months later…”