US News Microsoft Banned from Selling Word in US

Romek

Super Moderator
Reaction score
963
Microsoft has been accused of infringing patents owned by another company, i4i. The legal dispute centres around the way Microsoft Word handles certain kinds of documents.

i4i, based in Toronto, Canada, claimed that Microsoft "willingly violated" a patent granted in 1998 concerning methods for reading XML, a kind of programming language. XML allows users to customise the format of word-processing documents, enabling them to be read by various word-processing programs. Microsoft Word's ability to read and write XML documents is a crucial feature of the popular software.

Judge Leonard Davis, of the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, ruled that Microsoft had infringed i4i's patent, and ordered the software giant to pay $290 million (£176 million) in damages. This included $40 million (£25 million) for the wilful infringement of the patent, $37 million (£23 million) in pre-judgement interest, and a further $21,102 (£13,000) per day until a final judgement is reached.

 
Last edited by a moderator:

The Helper

Necromancy Power over 9000
Staff member
Reaction score
1,698
LOL I was just going to post this. What a public relations nightmare. Ordered to stop selling your most popular product. Wow.
 

Weegee

Go Weegee!
Reaction score
102
If they actually have to remove Word then everyday school life is going to get a lot different :eek:
 

seph ir oth

Mod'n Dat News Jon
Reaction score
262
If they actually have to remove Word then everyday school life is going to get a lot different :eek:

...notepad ftw!
 

Effane

Save/Load Code Tutorial
Reaction score
51
US Copyright law is such a mess and the Patent law isnt much better. You can accidently create a similar method of doing something and never be able to verify that there is a patent for it, but if there is one then you are at great risk of being hurt severely. And all the burden of proof is on the company that is being sued.
 

sqrage

Mega Super Ultra Cool Member
Reaction score
514
Wow it's like Apple is paying off all the judges of the world or something.
 

ReVolver

Mega Super Ultra Cool Member
Reaction score
608
This is why I have OpenOffice :p
 

Miz

Administrator
Reaction score
424
Bad move US government, don't you know all your systems run on Windows?

They better not remove Microsoft Word... I will be pissed off
 

ReVolver

Mega Super Ultra Cool Member
Reaction score
608
Bad move US government, don't you know all your systems run on Windows?

They better not remove Microsoft Word... I will be pissed off
Time for them to move to Open Source OS.
 

Darthfett

Aerospace/Cybersecurity Software Engineer
Reaction score
615
The argument doesn't seem to be going anywhere.

Cnet Poster said:
If you read the patent description, it seems to cover any system where document style data is stored seperately from the document content. This will include style sheets of both HTML and XML, as well as any web page that pull data from a data base. Cnet.com probably infringes on this patent as well.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-10805_3-10308013-75.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

Microsoft has appealed. I'm pretty sure they're going to get what they want.
 

C-Death

I love you
Reaction score
45

Rapmaster

Ultra Cool Member
Reaction score
95
Sounds like some of these patents could also cover the xml formats used in openoffice. The company just went after Microsoft because that's where the money is.
It's patent trolling. This i4i company likely doesn't have any serious products
 

KillerChi

New Member
Reaction score
20
I'm glad patent laws exists as it has a good purpose, companies use it to fight each other. Sometimes when people do stuff like this, peoples lives are affected negatively.
 

ElderKingpin

Post in the anime section, or die.
Reaction score
134
... why? im pretty sure A LOT of people use word, and A LOT of people are going to get pissed
 

bOb666777

Stand against the ugly world domination face!
Reaction score
117
Watch as I'm going to download Word illegally. :D.

Oh wait I already have word...

Well then, watch as I continue using it regardless! :O
 

Azlier

Old World Ghost
Reaction score
461
i4i, eye for eye. Lol.

Well, how are schools going to handle not being able to buy Word legally anymore?
 
General chit-chat
Help Users
  • No one is chatting at the moment.

      The Helper Discord

      Members online

      No members online now.

      Affiliates

      Hive Workshop NUON Dome World Editor Tutorials

      Network Sponsors

      Apex Steel Pipe - Buys and sells Steel Pipe.
      Top