More IP madness. According to MIT Technology Review,

Executives at Scientigo, a small software maker based in Charlotte, NC, say the company owns two U.S. patents (No. 5,842,213 and No. 6,393,426), that cover one of the fundamental concepts behind XML: the idea of packaging data in a self-defining format that allows it to be correctly displayed wherever it travels.

Scientigo CEO Doyal Bryant says the company plans to capitalize on the patents either  by reaching licensing agreements with big corporate users of XML or by selling them to another company.