patent application (MSFT)

Perhaps this is an unfortunate fifth birthday present for XML:

http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=
PG01&p=1&u=/netahtml/PTO/srchnum.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1='20030028685'.PGNR
..&OS=DN/20030028685&RS=DN/20030028685

(from news.com: http://news.com.com/2100-1001-984052.html)

It appears to be a patent application on .NET and the CLR, but XML (and
later namespaces) is mentioned repeatedly, within a scope that seems to
keep growing. For starters, the first claim is:

>1. A software architecture for a distributed computing system
>comprising: an application configured to handle requests submitted by
>remote devices over a network; and an application program interface to
>present functions used by the application to access network and
>computing resources of the distributed computing system. 

and then we see:
>4. A software architecture as recited in claim 1, wherein the
>application program interface comprises: a first group of services
>related to creating Web applications; a second group of services
>related to constructing client applications; a third group of services
>related to data and handling XML documents; and a fourth group of
>services related to base class libraries.
>
>5. An application program interface embodied on one or more computer
>readable media, comprising: a first group of services related to
>creating Web applications; a second group of services related to
>constructing client applications; a third group of services related to
>data and handling XML documents; and a fourth group of services
>related to base class libraries. 

These sound an awful lot like XML-oriented projects I have written and
am writing.  Anyone more knowledgeable than me have an explanation?

-- 
Simon St.Laurent
Ring around the content, a pocket full of brackets
Errors, errors, all fall down!
http://simonstl.com -- http://monasticxml.org