XPointer closely resembles XPath by letting you specify an XML document's parts. Further, XPointer and XPath share a similar syntax. However, XPointer differs from XPath in that the XPointer specifies only a location or contiguous region of the original document; XPath can select many unconnected elements. Compared to XPath, XPointer allows finer control over what you select, down to selecting parts of a text node. However, XPointer remains controversial because Sun holds a key XPointer patent which the company refuses to freely license. Instead, Sun licenses it on the condition that XPointer improvements go to the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium). With the license, Sun aims to keep XPointer free, or, to read between the lines, to keep Microsoft from embracing and extending this one.