But you might say, "Please Rob, you can't be serious. Who would try to get a patent on laying out a footnote? That just doesn't happen in the real world."
But consider for Microsoft's patent application "Method and computer readable medium for laying out footnotes" (US20060156225A1). I'm not saying that application matches the above feature in the standard, but if it did, is there anyone who will argue that the Open Specification Promise would not apply in this case?
"Defensive patents" make as much sense as leaving a loaded gun around the house. Like a home robbery, it is more likely it will be used against the home owner then the intruder.
These could soon become guns for the toddlers (or Acacia [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11]) to pull out of the parents' drawer, no? Remember the analogy that we used quite recently. Those patents, just like a gun, are also likely to be used offensively whenever threatened, cornered, or angry. "Defensive patent" excuses are akin to "pledges not to sue," none of which is a binding legal contract.
With the blink of a 117 MB download (and an even lengthier installation process), Office users will no longer be able to open files in 24 older file formats. That means users – citizens, government employees, small business owners, etc. – will not be able to open their own documents saved in file formats used by Corel (Wordperfect), Lotus, and most versions of MS Office products before 2000. Instead, users will see the not-so-user-friendly statement below:
“You are attempting to open a file type that is blocked by your registry policy setting.”
When a user attempts to open one of these older files, they will receive the above in a dialog box and no alternative actions are given to help users get access to their information in these “blocked” files.