"Brazil, India, and China, which together count for more than a third of the world's population, all voted against Office Open XML in voting last week before the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). Russia was the only member of the so-called BRIC nations to vote in favor of ISO ratification for OOXML."

Microsoft may have won a year-long quest to make its Office Open XML document format an ISO-recognised international standard, but claims of foul play in the voting process may come back to haunt the software giant when the European Commission concludes its latest antitrust investigation of Microsoft's business practices.

Brussels, 2 April 2008 — ISO members failed to disapprove the Open XML format. Microsoft has compromised the International Standards Organisation (ISO) during the rush to get a stamp for their Office OpenXML (OOXML), using unfair practices such as committee stuffing in several countries and political interventions of ministers in the standardization process.

In a recently published decision (PDF file), the US patent office has declared US company Blackboard’s e-learning patent invalid. The patent office rejected all 44 claims in the disputed US patent number 6,988,138, (“Alcorn patent”) for a system for teaching in a virtual classroom using the internet, including chat, a virtual blackboard and provision of teaching materials.

So, as we already expected and knew yesterday, ISO has just declared Microsoft’s OOXML an international chaos standards, despite the fact that stories about misconduct around the world continue to flow in and numerous antitrust concerns have been raised. Let’s take another quick look.

Adding to the first official protest, against Norway's sudden Yes vote on OOXML, now we have news from ChannelRegister that there will be a second complaint filed, this one about the UK's sudden about-face:

Like it or not, Microsoft’s OOXML – now known as IS 29500 — has received the proper number of votes to become an ISO standard.

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) said it would reveal on Wednesday whether Microsoft (MSFT.O: Quote, Profile, Research) had won the support needed to have its document format made into a global industry standard.