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Microsoft ordered to stop selling Word

Ruling says company unlawfully infringed on i4i patent

A federal court in Texas has ordered Microsoft to stop selling Microsoft Word.

Judge Leonard Davis of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Tyler Division, ruled yesterday in favor of Toronto-based i4i, stating that Microsoft unlawfully infringed the Canadian company’s patent.

Read the update:

Court ruling puts brakes on sales of Microsoft Word

At a jury trial that began on May 11, representatives for i4i said that Microsoft’s use of Word 2007 for processing XML documents with custom XML elements “willfully” infringed i4i’s Patent 449.

The ruling prohibits Microsoft from selling or importing to the U.S. any Word products that have the capability of opening XML, .DOCX or DOCM files that contain custom XML.

The ruling is set to go into effect in 60 days. The judge has also granted an award and damages of $290 million to i4i.

“We are disappointed by the court’s ruling,” said Kevin Kutz, a Microsoft spokesman. “We believe the evidence clearly demonstrated that we do not infringe and that the i4i patent is invalid. We will appeal the verdict.”

About the Author

Trudy Walsh is a senior writer for GCN.

Reader comments

Mon, Aug 17, 2009 -WW

As far as I am concerned, Office 2007 fixed something that was not broken. I still have a hard time finding what I need on those 2007 'ribbons'. Office 2003 is well known, easy to use, and capable of serving almost everyone's needs. Perhaps i4i has done us all a favor.

Mon, Aug 17, 2009 DT IA

How can someone patent an adopted open standard?

Fri, Aug 14, 2009 Scott Stuttgart

The problem here is that Microsoft is being punished for using an open document standard. Office 2007 is actually a step forward in useablity, and this ruling will force them to patch out the ability to use the new file formats, which will in turn cost everyone, private and government, in terms of server space used for end user documents. @Keninmo - what were you trying to say? And a better retort would be to use OpenOffice.Org instead, since it is free. And finally, no, Microsoft hasn't been caught, and they will weather this just fine. End users will be the ones that have to live with the workaround. MS will probably just recode all their document formats back into binary, closed formats. Instead of open archive style formats like .docx. End user loses.

Fri, Aug 14, 2009

Maybe the folks of the previous postings forgot what it was like when software was plain 'incompatible' and documents sent all over the country &/or within a business couldn't be read. Wake up. You're probably using Microsoft's product to make you more productive. Have you ever thought about that? Daaa!

Thu, Aug 13, 2009 ChrsAntiThesis

Chrs,in your world (procurement) you are on topic, but in Ron's (recovery?), Keninmo (IT), and M's (management?) you're the one that's off the topic. In any case, the fine may or may not stand, but the ruling to stop selling Word will never stand. I don't think the system as a whole has lost it's marbles that much yet.

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