XML Introduction

It is relatively simple to verify that a document is well-formed or validated XML, because the rules of well-formedness and validation of XML are designed for portability of tools. The idea is that any tool designed to work with XML files will be able to work with XML files written in any XML language (or XML application). You can use Firefox or Internet Explorer (which is embedded with XML parser) to load XML documents. Besides you can parse the XML documents in Ruby (Wikipedia 2009).

If the XML schema for business sector can be standardised, it will greatly improve the data exchange in e-commerce transactions. As I mentioned earlier, HKIPD provides the efiling services to filers so they can choose to file their Trademark/Patent/Design applications via the internet. Basically, the filers need to convert all the supporting documents to the XML format according to the schema issued by HKIPD and submit them together with the application to the designated website. For patent applications, sometimes the supporting documents are over hundred or even thousand pages and can be found from other overseas IP offices. If the XML schema is standardised in the Intellectual Property context, this will enhance the data exchange among within the industry.

W3C defines "SMIL" as follows:

The Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL, pronounced "smile") enables simple authoring of interactive audiovisual presentations. SMIL is typically used for "rich media"/multimedia presentations which integrate streaming audio and video with images, text or any other media type. SMIL is an easy-to-learn HTML-like language, and many SMIL presentations are written using a simple text-editor.

With using it, the multimedia presentations on the Internet will be handled by the same standard. This will greatly ease the multimedia development over the Internet.

References

W3C 2003, Synchronized Multimedia, W3C Interaction Domain, viewed on 28 April 2009, <http://www.w3.org/AudioVideo/>.

Wikipedia 2009, XML, Wikipedia, The free encyclopedia, last modified 27 April 2009, Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., US, viewed 30 April 2009, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XML>.