Is Sean Lyndersay Part of Microsoft's Control Group?
David Winer, editor of Scripting News, has what I think is an appropriate response to commentary by Sean Lyndersay, Program Manager Lead for RSS (Really Simple Syndication (RSS) at Microsoft, regarding Microsoft’s United States Patent Application 0060288329.
The application was filed in June 2005 but only became a subject of intense debate among tech bloggers last week. See "The Debate Over Really Simple Syndication.
In my opinion, the most important paragraph in "Patent Applications in the RSS space," Lyndersay's December 23, 2006, post over at the Microsoft Team RSS Blog, is this:
First, these patents describe specific ways to improve the RSS end-user and developer experience (which we believe are valuable and innovative contributions) -- they do not constitute a claim that Microsoft invented RSS.
Lyndersay contention that the applications "do not constitute a claim" only matters from a public relations perspective. As best as I can tell, he's not part of the control group, in the legal sense, at Microsoft. That would be people like Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Steve Ballmer; Ray Ozzie, chief software architect; Craig Mundie, chief research and strategy officer, and general counsel Brad Smith, the man picked "to guide Microsoft’s intellectual property and technology policy efforts."
In other words, Lyndersay doesn't have, to use a definition of "control" from Blacks Law Dictionary, the "power or authority to manage, direct, superintend, restrict, regulate, govern, administer, or oversee" Microsoft. That's the purview of the Board of Directors, the company's officers or anyone they designate.
And as best I can tell, Lyndersay doesn't fit this category. Perhaps he's a plenipotentiary. If he is, he doesn't say he has been commissioned to act for corporate Microsoft.
So, in that regard, I think Winer is correct when he asserts: "But patents are a legal thing, and Sean being nice isn't material. In the blogosphere, of course it is, and Microsoft's defenders will likely say or imply that it's all that matters."
By the way, I recommend a post Winer put at Scripting News Annex on January 20, 2006, headlined "RSS came from the publishing industry."
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