In reference to the patent: US20110320926
I worked on a project that became an Apache (open source) project. The functionality and methods described in this patent existed in the Apache XMLBeans project dating back to at least 2004. Tool Description: http://xmlbeans.apache.org/docs/2.0.0/guide/tools.html#inst2xsd Source Code showing date of 2004 http://svn.apache.org/viewvc/xmlbeans/trunk/src/tools/org/apache/xmlbeans/impl/xsd2inst/SampleXmlUtil.java?view=log
Additionally, there were/are other projects and tooling that provide similar functionality to that described in this patent. This query was posted in 2008, 2 years before the patent filing date. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/74879/any-tools-to-generate-an-xsd-schema-from-an-xml-instance-document
Microsoft also has a tool that provides similar functionality (see the XML to XSD section) https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/x6c1kb0s(VS.80).aspx
I don't find anything novel or unique about the approach this patent describes, in fact it seems quite similar to the algorithm used by Apache XMLBeans' inst2xsd tool: http://svn.apache.org/viewvc/xmlbeans/trunk/src/tools/org/apache/xmlbeans/impl/xsd2inst/SampleXmlUtil.java?revision=825680&view=markup
Can anyone see the uniqueness in this patent?