Microsoft's Korea troubles with a patent lawsuit

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Monday, 27 November 2006 21:44

Your IT - Home IT

Will Microsoft be forced to stop selling it’s popular Office software in South Korea thanks to a patent infringement?

A Korean technology transfer company called P&IB has come out with statements to the effect that patents granted in regards to special ‘language switching software’ in Office may cause Microsoft to remove them from future copies of the Korean language version of Microsoft Office.

The patent was granted for software which is used to switch input modes between English and Korean.

The patents were granted in the late 90s but were purchased by P&IB from Professor Lee Keung-hae of Hankuk Aviation University, the original patent applicant and winner, with P&IB clearly deciding to investigate to see how these patents could earn them some money.

How much money? We’re talking US $75 million, or 70 billion South Korean won, but Microsoft doesn’t seem worried with a local Korean lawyer working for Microsoft called Chung Jae-hoon saying that “he was sure the patents would be invalidated”.

Whether the software can be reprogrammed to accomplish the same task without violating any patents is unknown at this stage, but Microsoft may well solve the problem, should it prove to continue being a problem into the future, by settling the case.