Abstract (verbatim from actual
patent filing):
Techniques for presenting and managing syndication XML (feeds) are disclosed. In one embodiment, a user can modify how a feed is displayed, such as which content (and how much) is displayed, in what order, and how it is formatted. In another embodiment, a modification regarding how a feed is displayed is stored so that it can be used again at a later time. In yet another embodiment, a user can create a custom feed through aggregation and/or filtering of existing feeds. Aggregation includes, for example, merging the articles of multiple feeds to form a new feed. Filtering includes, for example, selecting a subset of articles of a feed based on whether they satisfy a search query. In yet another embodiment, a user can find articles by entering a search query into a search engine that searches feeds, which will identify one or more articles that satisfy the query.
Clearly Apple don't seem to understand the world of XML, so let me give them a quick recap:
1. XML enables separation of Data and Formating
2. It facilitates Data Representation, Transformation (XSLT), Exchange (syndication and subscription), and Modeling (languages, protocols, data models, amongst other things)
4. You can't patent its essence through the back door!
The Blogosphere is a Galaxy within Cyberspace comprised of Solar systems of Blogs that revolve around X-list bloggers, Topics, or more recently Tags; through the gravitational pull of links to RSS (today), Atom (in due course), and RDF (the future).
Unfortunately, Apple (a major late-comer to RSS) doesn't seem to understand that "RSS content search, aggregation and transformation" is practically the same thing as "XML search, aggregation and transformation". Subject matter covered extensively by XML based languages such as XSLT, XPath, XPointer, and XQuery.
Without XML there would be no RSS (as we know it today), and without RSS there would be no Blogosphere.
Repurposing Blogosphere content isn't a novel invention at all. Therefore, filing a patent along such lines is simply uncool by Apple's standards (like the inextricable binding of iWeb to .mac that was touted as innovative and open).
Final note: this blog is driven by a database engine that has understood XML for a long time. This blog has been my live demo of this fact since its inception. Here are a few things that it has done for a very long time (talking prior art here):
- Repurpose content on the fly from SQL and XML data sources to produce all the syndication and subscription gems you see on the Blog Home Page
- Offer a search feature that enables visitors to query blog archives using Free Text, XQuery, XPath (all transformation technologies alongside XSLT).