Word to Microsoft – Pay Up and Cease Sales
Posted on : 12-08-2009 | By : Sarah | In : Legal Stuff, News, Patents
Tags: Microsoft, patent
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Judge Davis of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas entered a final judgement against Microsoft today, following a jury verdict issued on May 20, 2009.
The suit originated in 2007, when Canadian software firm i4i Ltd sued Microsoft for infringing their U.S. Patent 5,787,499. The suit alleged that Microsoft knowingly infringed on this patent in its Word application and its Vista operating system.
The judgement entered today includes a permanent injunction prohibiting Microsoft from selling or importing to the United States any Microsoft Word products capable of opening .XML, .DOCX, or DOCM files containing custom XML. Microsoft must comply with the injunction within sixty days. Microsoft is also required to pay total damages and interest of more than $290 million to i4i Ltd.
Interesting article on why this shouldn’t worry Word users here.
Update: Good blogpost here that breaks down the injunction terms, infringed claims, and more

