Are we walking into a patent trap by adopting new protocols like SOAP?
ZD Net story.

I can understand the excitement surrounding the idea that protocols like SOAP could enable us to create a truly distributed data-processing and exchange network. But IBM and Microsoft hold important patents in this area, and are not going to give them up. If the new protocols become as central as TCP/IP is now, then the principle of an open (non-proprietary) Net will be violated and we’ll all be poorer as a result.