8 ms·
Court: Microsoft violated patent; can't sell Word
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- viggity 17y agoHere is more information on the dispute from the register: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/12/22/microsoft_loses_word_patent_appeal/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/12/22/microsoft_loses_word...
- josefresco 17y ago"won by Toronto-based software company i4i in Texas" Says it all.
- rayvega 17y agoAnyone know the specifics on what patent violation entails?
- blintson 17y agoplaintiff's website: http://www.i4i.com/ http://www.i4i.com/ "Custom editing xml files." Microsoft is barred from selling versions of word that can open and edit .docx or .xml files.
- nhebb 17y agoThey were sued by a company that uses Clippy in their screenshot?!? http://www.i4i.com/x4o.htm http://www.i4i.com/x4o.htm
- vaporstun 17y agoIn this particular instance it was literal infringement meaning Microsoft literally copied i4i's patented technology. First of all, i4i is not a patent troll, they are a document management company that actively deploys the technology on which they have a patent. One notable case of such is that they used it to overhaul the USPTO's own internal database. Microsoft came to i4i and contracted them to help them move Word over to an XML format. They then tried to strong arm i4i into some licensing agreement which they did not accept so Microsoft just decided to willfully infringe. This means they decided they would just ignore the patent and use i4i's patented technology anyway without paying them. Essentially, they stole i4i's work when they refused to sell on Microsoft's terms. More of the backstory in this article: http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2009/09/i4i-says-microsoft-went-behind-its-back-in-word-patent-tiff.ars http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2009/09/i4i-says-micro...
- josefresco 17y agoThis happened in Texas. I don't care what the backstory might be, 110% of the suits that come out of TX are complete BS.
- roc 17y agoThey might be an honest, hard-working group of good people who got tricked and steamrolled by their business partner (Microsoft). But their patent is still crap. The first claim of the '449 patent covers essentially any code that maps external XML data into a document. There is simply too much existing art in the file manipulation and database domains for this to be anything but obvious.
- algorias 17y ago> But their patent is still crap. No, the law is broken. What were they supposed to do, sit idle while someone else got the patent instead?
- cookiecaper 17y agoThis is good. We need more of these things to happen so that we can get some power behind the anti-software-patent lobby. Software patents have to become too dangerous to keep around, and that happens by things like this; right now, Microsoft and others use patents to lord over Linux and make vague threats about litigation. This is an important part of Microsoft's strategy, so software patents are important to them. But if more awesome things like making it illegal to sell Word and therefore Office happen, it'll be too dangerous to keep software patents around, MS will call up their cronies in Congress, and software patents will be out of commission in a year or less. I hope all the patent trolls of the world open the floodgates on Microsoft, Apple, and the other behemoths in the computer industry so that we can finally put the issue to rest.
- NathanKP 17y agoAt the same time legitimate software patents can help to protect small software studios and startups. It is a double edged sword.
- josefresco 17y agoI'd say it's still a one-sided sword. The side that crushes real innovation (and brings on crap suits like this) is sharp as hell, the one the 'protects' small startups is pretty blunt.
- Vivtek 17y agoThey're far more often used as bludgeons to drain the defense coffers of small software studios and startups. By the time a patent is granted, that startup has moved on to something better - show me a single software patent that a competent programmer couldn't develop in a few weeks given the description. Not the patented mechanism (that's generally obvious and we all know it), just what the invention is supposed to solve. Software patents are an abuse of the patent system.
- NathanKP 17y agoThe Yahoo news item is rather trite. Is there a link to a better story with more information about the patent that was infringed upon? Edit: Nevermind, someone else already posted a better link. I propose that the item link should be updated though.
- houseabsolute 17y ago"Rather trite" is rather trite.
- og1 17y agoI don't understand how much of anything dealing with XML can fall within the "non-obviousness" requirement of a patent. Who fills these juries for the trial? From the view of the general public I think the majority of things dealing with computers would be considered "non-obvious, and would therefore be worthless. Why aren't these decisions being made by professional peers?
- grellas 17y agoThis is a classic forum shopping case brought by a Canadian company against an international company headquartered in Seattle, with neither company having any connection whatever with the venue (Eastern District of Texas) other than that MS Word happens to be sold there. This particular district is famous for being wildly receptive to patent claims and is therefore used routinely by patent trolls searching for large verdicts and, indeed, a $240M verdict (plus add-on items totaling $50M), plus a permanent injunction, is a pretty big prize for "custom XML" technology that constitutes a very minor part of Word's functionality. Not that there isn't a form of justice in Microsoft being bitten by patent abuses when it has benefited for years from patent abuses that it has heaped upon others.
- ars 17y agoPrevious discussion on this, with more details http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=757504 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=757504
- chrischen 17y agoSo what did Microsoft do? Violate a patent for a "program which let's users type and format text"?
- pvg 17y agoPatent in question - http://www.google.com/patents?id=y8UkAAAAEBAJ&dq=5787449 http://www.google.com/patents?id=y8UkAAAAEBAJ&dq=5787449
- sev 17y agoGoogle's acquisition of DocVerse is starting to make more and more sense.
- bioweek 17y agoWhy is MSFT stock up for the day and for the week? Shouldn't this majorly affect their revenue?
- nostrademons 17y agoThe stock is supposed to reflect the discounted value of all future cash flows. In the grand scheme of Microsoft's Infinite Revenue Machine, having Word off the market for a month or so while they figure out a workaround really doesn't make much of a dent.
- bioweek 17y agoSo no one is worried it will be off the market permanently? I thought investors were prone to panic?
- blhack 17y agoMicrosoft is a company made of very smart people; they're not going to let one of their flagship products simply disappear.
- ispivey 17y agoNo; other people read the article, and have heard the news that Microsoft plans to have a modified (compliant) version for sale as soon as this injunction takes effect.
- riferguson 17y agoI have absolutely no opinion about the validity of this particular patent, but I want to forestall a bunch of random griping. Please, please don't post commentary that involves "just reading the patent" and thinking (a) you know what it means, or (b) saying that it's "obvious" from a cursory glance. All patents need to be interpreted in light of their "file history", which is the correspondence between the Patent Office and the filer during the patent examination. It is literally true that the words in the text may not mean what you think they do. It is not uncommon for patent claims to be completely changed by the file history, which in complex cases can comprise thousands of pages of back and forth; if you pay the copying costs you can get the patent office to send you the file for any particular patent. If a patent has been litigated, you may be able to figure out what the court and the original patent examiner thought the patent meant by reading the lawsuit filings and judgement, but just looking at the patent by itself is not necessarily going to help you understand the details. [IANAL, but I've been to the rodeo before.]
- coffeemug 17y agoMeanwhile, the judge's decision was written in Microsoft Word (do lawyers still use Word Perfect?) May be Microsoft should stop selling Windows and Office in a couple of these jurisdictions. For serious document processing there still is no good alternative to Microsoft Office. I have a feeling that if this were to happen, the public would be losing a lot more than Microsoft itself.
- jrockway 17y agoOO.org Writer is adequate for 90% of Word's users. I wrote a book a few years ago, and the editors used Word. Corresponding with them by using OO.org was not too difficult; all the features were there, although not completely polished. I looked at the features I thought were unpolished a few years ago again recently (I am not a big word processor fan), and they are fine now. OO.org Writer is now basically Word without Exchange integration.
- Eliezer 17y agoOO.org Writer will be adequate as soon as they come out with a decent Outline view. Until then, I and a whole whack of other people are staying on XP rather than Ubuntu primarily because OO.org lacks this one feature! http://qa.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=3959 http://qa.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=3959
- jrockway 17y agoIf it's such a big issue, why not implement it yourself? Then you and a whole whack of other people can switch from XP to Ubuntu!
- assemble 17y agoHave you considered that maybe they aren't a programmer and don't have the technical knowledge to add a feature like that? This kind of attitude is one of the things that drives people away from Linux and the open-source movement in general. Personally: every time I use OO, I'm reminded of how much better Word is--in interface (the ribbon is GREAT), features (everything you could ever need), compatibility (you can save in PDF), etc.
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- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- wayne 17y agoMicrosoft's plan is to remove the feature from Office: http://www.microsoft.com/Presspass/press/2009/dec09/12-22statement.mspx http://www.microsoft.com/Presspass/press/2009/dec09/12-22sta...
- 10ren 17y agoOral argument for the Bilski appeal was heard last month - perhaps something will come of that. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilski http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilski Personally, I think patent law needs a massive overhaul; but I also think that the lone inventor should be protected - or why would anyone bother doing deep useful work? We would then only get the deep work (of academics) and the user-driven hill-climbing (of open source/big corporations). I guess startups like Appjet (etherpad) are an exception... but, according to their early webpage, they had a software patent. Which Google may have wanted when it acquired them. I expect that Dropbox, which also has some cool proprietary technology, also sought to patent it, given pg's position http://www.paulgraham.com/softwarepatents.html http://www.paulgraham.com/softwarepatents.html While a startup can protect itself by growing and innovating fast, I have a soft spot for the deep technical innovator. I appreciate those incremental hill-climbing innovations; the cool stuff in the labs that never actually becomes usable; and the clever identification of markets and exploitation thereof. But the revolutionary stuff is what I love. I'm always surprised that so many developers, who I would think are creative types, don't think deep innovation deserves the encouragement and reward of protection. Note that Xerox PARC was funded by patents (on xerography); and Bell Labs' origin can be traced to a patent (on telephony).
- manish 17y ago"Microsoft has said that it and the public will both suffer if Word goes off the market while the company devises a workaround." I am touched by Microsoft's concern for public.
- 10ren 17y agoSome insightful comments on slashdot (browsing at 5): http://yro.slashdot.org/story/09/12/22/1936214/Microsoft-Ordered-To-Pay-290M-Stop-Selling-Word http://yro.slashdot.org/story/09/12/22/1936214/Microsoft-Ord...
- drawkbox 17y agoSad thing about this is there is some developers at Microsoft right now working on this, for as many possible hours per day all through the holiday just to fix and remove the features. They couldn't have waited until January 4th to drop this?
- dangrossman 17y agoOffice/Word won't drop off store shelves for any period of time. In the months since this case was initially filed and the injunction granted, Microsoft rewrote the small bit of Word code the company claims infringes to no longer use that method. They reprinted the Office CDs, repackaged and are shipping out new copies to be on shelves before the day the injunction ends.