In a landmark injunction at the US Court of Appeals this week, Microsoft has won a stay in the patent infringement case against i4i. Previously the courts had given the company only sixty days to stop selling the current form of the incredibly popular Microsoft Word program in both its 2003 and 2007 versions.
The case began in 2007 when Toronto firm i4i sued the Redmond software company for violating its 1998 patent (#5,787,449) – describing the details of a document system that got rid of the need for manually entering formatting codes. The Custom XML abilities of Microsoft Word have been found to violate this patent with a jury ordering Microsoft to pay out $200 million for the infringement.
Microsoft’s argument at the appeal revolved around the judge making procedural errors and failing to live up to his role as a ‘gatekeeper’. Reaching a settlement with i4i or creating some sort of workaround that doesn’t involve having to stop selling Word are options that also available to Microsoft.
Kevin Kutz, Microsoft Spokesman commented on the decision: “We are happy with the result and look forward to presenting our arguments on the main issues on September 23.”
I4i have yet to comment on the decision but have stated in the past they are not seeking to “torpedo” the Microsoft Word program, and are simply trying to get the offending XML options removed. Unless a settlement is reached though, the ability to create Custom XML documents is something that’s very likely to be stripped from Word in the near future. For now though, Microsoft are allowed to continue selling the products.
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