In a giant decision 13th August 2009, a federal district court judge has ruled against Microsoft, and told the software company it must stop selling the extremely popular Word word processing software in the United States.
The victor company, i4i, has only 30 employees but claims Microsoft violated a patent pertaining to Extensible Markup Language (XML). The judge agreed.
Microsoft has 60 days to appeal, or cease selling Word, a key component of the Office bundle. The company was also fined $290 million USD. Microsoft says Office accounts for over $3 billion USD in sales per year.
“It’s not a question of fear or pride or anything else,” added Loudon Owen, i4i chairman, via USA Today.“We’re very respectful of Microsoft, but when you’re in the right you have to persevere.”
Microsoft will obviously appeal.
“We are disappointed by the court’s ruling,” says Microsoft spokesman Kevin Kutz. “We believe the evidence clearly demonstrated that we do not infringe and that the i4i patent is invalid.”
i4i has the patent for “customized XML,” which has been the default format for Word files since the 2007 edition. If the ruling stands, Microsoft would not be allowed to sell the 2003 or 2007 editions.
UPDATE
According to newly leaked emails, it appears that Microsoft knew about i4i‘s XML patent but decided to go ahead with Word anyways.
“We saw [i4i’s products] some time ago and met its creators. Word 11 will make it obsolete,” said one email from Martin Sawicki, a member of Microsoft’s XML for Word development team. “It looks great for XP though.”
The email was written before the release of Office 2003, when Word was
