Microsoft loses its XML appeal - payday for i4i

Stephen Withers
Wednesday, 23 December 2009 02:02

IT Industry - Strategy

A US Court of Appeals has upheld a decision that Microsoft Word infringes an XML-related patent held by a Canadian company, but has given Microsoft more time to remove the offending feature from Word 2007.

In August, Microsoft found itself at the sharp end of an injunction that basically called for Word to be taken off the US market while it was capable of manipulating files containing custom XML.

The injunction followed a May jury verdict in a Texas court that found Microsoft had knowingly infringed a patent held by Canada-based i4i.

Microsoft was required to stop selling Word 2003 and 2007 by the end of October and pay $US290 million in damages.

Not surprisingly, Microsoft appealed the verdict.

Microsoft apparently thought it had its ducks in a row going into the appeal and in September a Court of Appeals stayed the sales injunction, allowing Word to remain on the US market during the appeal.

That appeal has now been completed, and i4i won again.

So when will Word be modified to comply with the decision? Find out on page 2.