Judge: Microsoft Can't Sell Word in the U.S.
A judge has ruled that Microsoft is no longer allowed to sell Microsoft Word in the United States because of a patent infringement.
The verdict comes a few months after Microsoft was ordered to pay Toronto-based i4i $200 million for infringing upon a patent awarded to the company in 1998. U.S. Patent No. 5,787,499 covers software designed to manipulate "document architecture and content." Attorneys at McKool Smith, the firm representing i4i, explained that the software covered by the patent removed the need for individual, manually embedded command codes to control text formatting in electronic documents.
McKool Smith yesterday announced that Judge Leonard Davis, of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, had ordered a permanent injunction that "prohibits Microsoft from selling or importing to the United States any Microsoft Word products that have the capability of opening .XML, .DOCX or DOCM files (XML files) containing custom XML."
Judge Davis also enhanced the damages awarded in May, tacking on an additional $40 million for willful infringement, $37 million in prejudgment interest, including an additional $21,102 per day until a final judgment is reached in the case and $144,060 per day until the date of final judgment for post-verdict damages.
Microsoft has 60 days to comply with the ruling, and the Redmond-based company has already said it will appeal the verdict.
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LOL
So the priates of Xerox finally get caught?
Suckage. Glad I already own a couple copies...
this is why you have to do your homework MS.....
wow, we have one f*cked up patent system...
so if i'm reading this right having XML tags in a doc is patent infringement? Also looks like MS will be giving away another piece of software..
wow, we have one f*cked up patent system...
+1. Well said.
O.k. I'm not a legal expert by any stretch of the imagination, and these questions come to mind: What does this do for people that need to buy Word - I have a customer that was about to buy Word (her newspaper requires the newest version)... will she still be able to buy it now?
Also, what does this mean to those 3rd-party applications that offers Word compatibility, like Open Office, or some Palm applications?
HAHAHA!! Now i'm starting to really understand why the nu/Linux community don't believe in patents
Do you think open office will benifit from this?
"the software covered by the patent removed the need for individual, manually embedded command codes to control text formatting in electronic documents."
what?? and the patent is in 1998? when was the last time we use ctrl+K+D to modify text?
LOL MS just got bitched
Awesome! No more docx compatibility issues! Office 2007 just got hurt bad, i wonder if this applies to pptx and their other weird formats.
Wait a second, isn't microsoft business model mostly based on that f*ucked up patent system?. If it was the other way around and i4i was infringing a Microsoft patent, Microsoft would be all over them in court too.
ouch this will hurt Microsoft a lot.
I doubt it, the article only mentions a few document types.
DOWN WITH ALL SOFTWARE PATENTS! What a waste.
Wait a second, isn't microsoft business model mostly based on that f*ucked up patent system?. If it was the other way around and i4i was infringing a Microsoft patent, Microsoft would be all over them in court too.
I dunno about that.. I've read Microsoft and Linux distros infringe on each other and Unix.. But its like the cold war.. 1 fires their missiles everyone on every side will launch theirs so they have a stand still and just infringe their marry ways..
LOL is RIGHT! Maybe it is Karma that is causing the uncontrollable rage to pirate copies of windows. Kind of like the Native American Indian curse of the Tobacco plant. Sounds reasonable to me!
So the priates of Xerox finally get caught?
That'd be Apple who also stole *nix and called it Mac OS.
All big companies file thousands of patents so that when company A sues B, B counter sues A. And that made the big companies stand still on patent war.
The small companies however, wants to sue big companies for quick cash. And it almost always worked because of how screwed up the Patent law really is.
US Patent law has not changed since pre-consumer-software time. It really isn't suited for the high speed of software development.
Patents are good only if m$ is owning them... if m$ don't own them, they must be invalidated.
Anyway, lawyers win.
rofl.
Maybe I should start registering some patents like "a device which lets users to input their emotional feelings into a computer system"
AHH ! I WILL BE RICH IN 10-20 YEARS ! WEEEEEHEEE !
Hrm.. $144,000 per day? somebody sure found a nice gravy train to ride.
LOL! good joke guys, i didn't know it was April 1st. no judge could be THIS stupid.
So wait, MS Office is illegal to sell now (after all, it comes with Word)?
I guess this means that I get to pump OpenOffice more often now, but something is awry here. Shouldn't the judge just of ordered MS to pay a fee then a licensing fee?
Also, I didn't know one could hold the patents for utility like this...
I could control text formatting on Lisa and Macintosh system from Apple (without having to "manually embedded command codes to control text formatting in electronic documents" way back in 1984... so I"m not sure how that patent could be valid in 1998.
"McKool Smith, the firm representing i4i"
Is it just me or the company name is actually that funny?
so long for word 2010 that was coming out soon
I dunno about that.. I've read Microsoft and Linux distros infringe on each other and Unix.. But its like the cold war.. 1 fires their missiles everyone on every side will launch theirs so they have a stand still and just infringe their marry ways..
The only problem here is i4i is probably a patent black-hole. Meaning all they do is collect patents without creating a meaningful product. Therefore, they fired their missiles, but Microsoft has nothing to fire back at. Patents should be invalidated if the owner makes no attempt to market or license the patent. Waiting till someone infringes and suing them is a total B.S. way of running a business.
If M$ loses on appeal, ultimately they will work out a royalty arrangement with i4i, and consumers will have to fork over another $5-$10 or so per copy of Word.
The big winners are the lawyers, who will rake in a percentage of this amounting to millions, without having produced anything of value.
The big losers are consumers, who pay for this nonsense with higher prices.
And what are we going to use for word and writing now?
Maybe MS should just team up with Google's web office version. It could be a win-win for both of them.