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Federal appeals court rules against Microsoft in Word patent infringement suit

By Bernard Hibbitts (editor) and University of Pittsburgh School of Law students.

[JURIST] The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Tuesday affirmed a lower court ruling that Microsoft infringed on a patent of Canadian company i4i with portions of its Word 2007 word-processing software. i4i alleged that Microsoft willfully infringed on patents it held on XML technology, which was used extensively in Microsoft Word 2007. The US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas had ordered Microsoft to stop selling its Microsoft Word 2007 software, which contains patent infringing code, and to pay i4i $290 million in damages, but the injunction was stayed while the appeals court reviewed the case. Microsoft said in a statement that it was already making plans to cooperate with the ruling: With respect to Microsoft Word 2007 and Microsoft Office 2007, we have been preparing for this possibility since the District Court issued its injunction in August 2009 and have put the wheels in motion to remove this little-used feature from these products. Therefore, we expect to have copies of Microsoft Word 2007 and Office 2007, with this feature removed, available for U.S. sale and distribution by the injunction date. In addition, the beta versions of Microsoft Word 2010 and Microsoft Office 2010, which are available now for downloading, do not contain the technology covered by the injunction.Microsoft plans to alter Microsoft Word 2007 to remove the infringing elements by the January 11 deadline so that sales are not interrupted. Aside from the patent issues, Microsoft has faced numerous legal challenges based on antitrust and unfair competition allegations. Earlier this month, Microsoft settled an EU antitrust suit, agreeing to allow European Windows users to switch to an alternative Internet browser beginning next year. In September, a South Korean court found Microsoft in violation of antitrust laws for bundling software programs with its Windows operating system. The same court previously ruled in June that Microsoft violated antitrust laws, but dismissed the plaintiff's claims because they were not sufficiently linked to Microsoft's conduct.

Full post as published by JURIST - The Paper Chase on December 23, 2009 (boomark / email).