JSON converter module not proccesing strings with '<'

[Carlos Manuel Lopez]

I run the next query:

import module namespace json="http://www.zorba-xquery.com/modules/converters/json";
declare variable $json-value = '{"html":"<b>bold</b>"}';
json:parse($json-value)

And I get then next error:
converters\json.xq>:158,3: dynamic error [err:FODC0006]: invalid content passed to fn:parse-xml(): loader parsing error: StartTag: invalid element name

I've noticed that this problem occurs with any string containing '<' so for example if we change the second line for
declare variable $json-value := '{"html":"1 < 2"}'
it still crashes in the same way.