Even for Tyler, it's unusual for a judge to issue an injunction prohibiting sale of a major product, particularly something as widely used as Microsoft Word. The patent's age and existence of a real company producing real products makes this case look quite different from the typical patent troll case filed in Tyler or the surrounding area. i4i is for real, selling XML-based collaborative solutions, mostly to pharmaceutical companies. As such, it's easy to dismiss yesterday's court judgment as meritless. Plaintiffs tend to win big judgments there, and surrounding vicinity, against companies like Microsoft.
patent law and enforcement has become a disgrace, and each such 'victory' drives up the cost of technology for all of us and makes real innovation ever harder to achieve. Microsoft doesn't deserve this kind of punishment for this particular misdeed. I also think Open XML is a junk standard. This injunction will not be easy to dodge. Microsoft may very well have to stop sales or disable Open XML, Word's new standard document format. It also believes that Microsoft has used its patent in Word. It's a real company that uses its patented technology in real products. But, it's real and it's anything but a joke for Microsoft. The fact that a judge would ban all sales of Microsoft Word because it can edit an XML document? The whole thing shows (yet again) how screwed up the patent system has become. However, he gave Microsoft 60 days to comply, which is ample time for Microsoft to appeal. From the actual injunction, there's no evidence at all that the judge weighed anything at all. The Supreme Court says that a judge should weigh a variety of factors in determining if an injunction is reasonable. Of course, there's about 0% probability that this will actually stop the sales of Word. Actually, how it's patentable at all is beyond me. How that could be worth $98 per copy of Word is beyond me. Patent, 5,787,449, is about XML editing of a word processed document.
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Of course, when you live by software patents, expect to die by software patents. Mike Masnick pours sauce over the goose : The company, whose Web site advertises that users can "Create and edit XML content in Microsoft Word," helps clients work with XML. i4i alleges Microsoft willingly violated its 1998 patent (No. You read that right: Microsoft cannot sell Word, the judge ruled.
DOCX, or DOCM files containing custom XML. Until that point Microsoft is banned from selling or importing into the US any Word products which can open. The court also ordered Microsoft to hand over $144,060 a day until the date of final judgement of damages. Judge Leonard Davis told Microsoft to pay $40m for the willful infringement, $37m in prejudgement interest and $21,102 per day till final judgement is reached. The long-running court case was brought by Canadian software firm i4i which won $200m in damages from Microsoft when a jury found it had willfully infringed a patent relating to XML custom formatting. The US District Court of Eastern Texas has granted an injunction to prevent Microsoft from selling copies of Word because it infringes a patent owned by another company.