Judge orders Microsoft to stop selling Word

http://news.cnet.com/8301-10805_3-10308013-75.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5

A judge on Tuesday ordered Microsoft to stop selling Word, one of its premier products, in its current form due to patent infringement.
Judge Leonard Davis of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas issued 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," according to a statement released by attorneys for the plantiff, i4i.

Microsoft said it was disappointed in the ruling and that it would appeal the verdict.
"We believe the evidence clearly demonstrated that we do not infringe and that the i4i patent is invalid," Microsoft spokesperson Kevin Kutz said in a statement.
Toronto-based i4i sued Microsoft in March 2007 alleging that the Redmond,Wash.-based software giant violated its 1998 patent (No. 5,787,449) for a document system that eliminated the need for manually embedded formatting codes.
XML--an integral feature in Microsoft Word--is considered a "page description language," with one of its key qualities being that it is readable by people, not just machines. Unlike HTML, which has predefined tags, XML allows developers and users to define their own tags for data, such as price and product.
In May, a federal jury in Tyler, Texas, ruled that the custom XML tagging features of Word 2003 and Word 2007 infringed on i4i's patent and ordered Microsoft to pay $200 million in the case.
In Tuesday's ruling, Microsoft was also ordered to pay an additional $40 million for willful infringement, as well as $37 million in prejudgment interest. The order requires Microsoft to comply with the injunction within 60 days and forbids Microsoft from testing, demonstrating, or marketing Word products containing the contested XML feature.
However, it's unlikely Microsoft will take one of its biggest money-makers off the market. The injunction gives Redmond two months to pursue an appeal, craft a settlement, or implement a technical workaround that removes the technology found to be infringing.

 

What the?.... Wow . I didn't even know that this was being contested. So what does this mean to the consumer that has bought Word 2007 or is considering buying Word 2007? What if this ruling holds, what do you think MS will do? Also wouldn't this affect the other office products like Excel?

 

This will destroy the world as we know it. dun dun dun...

 

Haha, how could the judge possibly even fathom this kind of ruling? What would this world be like without word!?

 

We'd all be stuck using *gasp* WordPerfect! *shudders*

 

This is so stupid it's unbelievable. Fine, have Microsoft pay them millions, but order that they can't sell Word? Every person I know uses Word. Taking it off the market is absurd.

Our patent system is really great for some things, but things like this really make me upset about the whole system.

 

Yep, let's force MS to pay $200 million to a developer squatting on patents he would never use.

 

Exactly, its a loop hole in the system.

Its not like MS is the only company/program that uses it.

It seems you would be better off investing in patents and web domains these days than you would stocks or other known forms of investment so you can rape the big companies that need them.

 

...dum di dum...

All people are equal, but some are more equal than others....

Who said law ever made sense and was fair?

It wasn't in communism, it isn't in capitalism...

I think there are quite a few "digital rulings" that do not follow common sense...

 

So I guess I am trying to get a gauge on how serious this is. Microsoft has many lawsuits. Is this just another case of settlement or is this as serious as it sounds? Maybe they will have to stick with the .doc format and leave it at that?

 

What about public opposition to the lawsuit?

I mean... I don't know how literate US judges are in the "digital world".

But German politicians show themselves to be totally incompetent and then try to force through laws which rally the people against them...

So a few petitions, international ones or a couple of protests in favour of Microsoft may help... but then who'd actually do this? ...

And back to .doc ? - god help me, please no.

 

hah, that'll be the day there would be public protests FOR microsoft lol!

 

Well.....the odds are that Microsoft's lawyers will tie up the ruling in the courts for a couple of years until a settlement is eventually reached or it dies.....

 

It will get finished with a large settlement I am sure, this company claims it doesnt want to hurt MS or Word just to have them to stop using there tech they had a copyright on.

They sat on it for how many years and just now decided it was a problem?

They just want some money and MS is going to have to give it to them.

I really do not see how a common judge has the power to invoke such a serious order. I thought there were higher up courts for this kind of stuff.

Also I thought these were some interesting facts that I have found while reading up on this:

Lots on info online about Texas and how they are prone to helping "patent trolls" looks like I4i did there research and stacked the desk against MS before the game even started.

 

Not my Office Word 2007, I'm not going back to Word Perfect, god I hate using Word Perfect so much.
Give me names and I'll give you heads. *grabs shotgun*

 

Couldn't MS carry it to some higher court under these circumstances?

 

Does this i4i company actually sell a product, or do they just have a patent for the idea of

I think idea patents are great (and very useful in many cases), but can easily be abused by people who patent every "idea" that comes in to their head no matter how vague and have no intention of actually creating a product based on that idea. Then when a company comes around and makes a product that resembles their "idea", they cry "patent infringement!!" and try to make millions in a settlement. Total abuse of the system.

 

It pains me to see MS being involved in so many lawsuits. The sad truth is the majority of them are caused by jealousy. The US or EU Governments have also been b*tches to MS. MS should just threaten to not let the Gov use their software or charge them a premium to cover these stupid fines that are constantly being imposed on them.

 

This isn't a problem with the judge or even the companies involved in the litigation; the problem is the copyright system that the US clings to so dearly. It's outdated, obsolete, and leads to some very outrageous things being copyrighted.

 

Yes and no. I agree with you that the copyright system is oudated and needs reform. But, many ridiculous copyright infringement lawsuits are upheld by judges causing others to look for ways to abuse the system as well.

 

Is it based on No-limit Texas hold 'em?

 

There are biotechnology companies in the US that have patented strings of nucleic acids, the basis of DNA; surely there is something wrong with a system when a company can lay claim to a certain configuration of atoms?

This court case is not just ironic in that Microsoft is getting burned by the same system it exploits, it is also a mere extension of the biotechnology companies I referred to. An idea isn't a piece of abstract property to be owned, yet that is exactly what corporations are doing.

 

Well, intellectual property needs to be protected in some way, but I feel that infringements should only be enforced if the original patent filer had made any attempt to use that idea/patent for something.

We really are getting pretty OT here..

 

Which is why I'll just leave the conversation here...

 

Does anyone here think that the judge uses Word?

 

Probably a Mac

 

Well, here is an interesting development.