Microsoft’s patent applications for RSS feed (and other feed format) readers & aggregators were made public yesterday, showing that the company filed for the patents in June 2005.
Cnet’s Anne Broache adds:
That date, incidentally, is just three days prior to the company’s formal announcement that it planned to build support for RSS into the next version of its Internet Explorer browser and into its planned Windows Vista operating system–then referred to as Longhorn.
The first patent is entitled Finding and consuming web subscriptions in a web browser.
Abstract:
A content syndication platform, such as a web content syndication platform, manages, organizes and makes available for consumption content that is acquired from the Internet. In at least some embodiments, the platform can acquire and organize web content, and make such content available for consumption by many different types of applications. These applications may or may not necessarily understand the particular syndication format. An application program interface (API) exposes an object model which allows applications and users to easily accomplish many different tasks such as creating, reading, updating, deleting feeds and the like. Further, in at least some embodiments, a user can subscribe to a particular web feed, be provided with a user interface that contains distinct indicia to identify new feeds, and can efficiently consume or read RSS feeds using both an RSS reader and a web browser.
Inventors:
Gandhi; Amar S.; (Redmond, WA) ; Kim; Jane T.; (Seattle, WA) ; Lueders; John H.; (Redmond, WA) ; Lyndersay; Sean O.; (Redmond, WA) ; Stevens; Warren G.; (Redmond, WA) ; Choi; Wayne Wy; (Redmond, WA) ; Gould; William; (Redmond, WA) ; Morgan; Bruce A.; (Bellevue, WA)
The second patent is Content syndication platform:
Abstract
A content syndication platform, such as a web content syndication platform, manages, organizes and makes available for consumption content that is acquired from the Internet. In at least some embodiments, the platform can acquire and organize web content, and make such content available for consumption by many different types of applications. These applications may or may not necessarily understand the particular syndication format. An application program interface (API) exposes an object model which allows applications and users to easily accomplish many different tasks such as creating, reading, updating, deleting feeds and the like.
Inventors:
Gandhi; Amar S.; (Redmond, WA) ; Praitis; Edward J.; (Woodinville, WA) ; Kim; Jane T.; (Seattle, WA) ; Lyndersay; Sean O.; (Redmond, WA) ; Koch; Walter V. von; (Seattle, WA) ; Gould; William; (Redmond, WA) ; Morgan; Bruce A.; (Bellevue, WA) ; Kwan; Cindy; (Redmond, WA)
Both patent applications are interesting reads however it can easily be argued that such systems have been around since 2003 (thinking Ask.com’s Bloglines & NewsGator as obvious examples).
