WASHINGTON – A federal appeals court on Tuesday upheld a $290 million judgment against Microsoft Corp. and issued an injunction that will prevent the sale of its popular Word software.
The court injunction is set to go into effect Jan. 11. Microsoft has said such a bar would prohibit the sale of all currently available versions of Microsoft Word and Microsoft Office.
Microsoft had appealed a Texas jury verdict in favor of i4i Inc., a Toronto company. The jury found recent versions of Microsoft Word infringed on a software patent.
Microsoft has said that it and the public will both suffer if Word goes off the market while the company devises a workaround. The court said the decision does not affect copies of the programs sold before the injunction goes into effect, so Microsoft can still provide technical support to the old versions even if they infringe on the patent.
Hi all
I was half drunk at the time but watching on our International 'Biz News channel (even if it is XMAS the Stock market is still open ) I think I saw something about another MS tangle with lawyers upholding some previous Court decision involving a canadian company i4i (I think) and MS Office.
Anyway upshot is that someone in Canada can't sell MS Office from Jan 2010 -- not sure who'se suing who or what but if someone can enlighten me -- I can't believe MS Office is going to be blocked in Canada although looking at some international Court decisions these days anything is possible if you pay the Lawyers enough.
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Computer Type: PC/Desktop System Manufacturer/Model Number: Custom built, several laptops HP/ASUS OS: Linux CENTOS 7 / various Windows OS'es and servers CPU: Intel i7 Intel i5 Memory: 8GB, 16GB Graphics Card: On Motherboard Sound Card: Realtek HD audio Monitor(s) Displays: Apple Cinema display, Samsung LCD Screen Resolution: 1920 X 1080 Mouse: Toshiba wireless laser Hard Drives: 4 X 1TB SATA Internet Speed: > 20MB up
Computer Type: PC/Desktop System Manufacturer/Model Number: Custom built, several laptops HP/ASUS OS: Linux CENTOS 7 / various Windows OS'es and servers CPU: Intel i7 Intel i5 Memory: 8GB, 16GB Graphics Card: On Motherboard Sound Card: Realtek HD audio Monitor(s) Displays: Apple Cinema display, Samsung LCD Screen Resolution: 1920 X 1080 Mouse: Toshiba wireless laser Hard Drives: 4 X 1TB SATA Internet Speed: > 20MB up
The injunction is against the custom XML function...which Microsoft director of public affairs, Kevin Kutz says, "is a little used feature" that they are quickly removing from the 2003 and 2007 products. It's not included with the 2010 product whatsoever.
This isn't the ability to use docx formats or xml in general.
Win7User512 said:
Between the U.S. courts and the EU, MS can only win in the court of public opinion!
Discuss!
Well, according to i4i, the infringement was intentional and was a deliberate attempt to remove i4i from the marketspace. Sounds to me like Microsoft might have been stepping on some toes in order to retain their stranglehold in the marketspace. In my court of opinion, I prefer fair business practices and a better product...not a strong-arm tactic from a monopoly.