CNET: Microsoft balances patents, standards

The open standards some large technology companies are very publicly "embracing" may suffer from those same companies patenting uses and ways of manipulating those standards. While Microsoft, for instance, has use the freely-available XML standard, it also is patenting methods of manipulating XML data.

Conspiracy theorists may liken this embrace to the infamous "embrace and extend" terminology the software giant used in its campaign to destroy Netscape, but even shorn of this sort of perceived intent, the very fact that large tech firms work with open standards and apply their intellectual property protections to their own work may succeed in narrowing the scope and usefulness of such open standards in the long run.