>Do you have references to it being rejected? I had not heard that until now.

>>Yes, Fox Software had applied for a patent. It was pending when purchased by Microsoft. Some years later the patent was rejected; it depended on too much "prior art". The technique used is known and has been incorporated into other products. The copyright would apply to the code that produces VFP -- if another implementation is created in a clean room (meaning no reverse engineering) then it is not a violation of copyright.

Been quite some time since this; I think it happened while MS was fighting the antitrust cases with gov. I remember wondering at the time, if Fox Software had still been independent that it might have been granted. Would have to do some searching to try and find the old results.