A court has ordered sales of Word to cease – but it won’t happen.
A judge in Texas has decreed that Microsoft has to stop selling Word within 60 days, as part of losing one round in a patent dispute.
If it went ahead, that means Microsoft would have to stop selling not just Word but MS Office too.
That’s a big IF – it’s hard to see that the legal might of Microsoft will allow things to get that far. Perhaps Microsoft wasn’t taking this case too seriously, but they certainly are now. The whole case will get maneuvered off to the “Court of Infinite Litigation” long before the 60 days is up.
The rumor mill is running amok as usual and so Office Watch has to backfill some sense.
Even if the judgment went ahead, it would NOT stop anyone using their existing Word/Office installations. Microsoft could not stop you using an installed Office even if it was ordered to.
It’s hard to imagine a situation where Microsoft was forced to stop ‘activation’ of newly installed MS Office.
And it’s only slightly less difficult to imagine Microsoft Legal letting things get to the point where Word/Office can’t be sold. The technologies under dispute are so intertwined into Office that it would be almost impossible to make a new version of the software without the disputed elements.
In other words, for all Office users this is a non-issue. A mild curiosity at best.
The Case
The patent case itself is over the XML technologies in Word. I4i, a Canadian company, claims a patent over methods of reading XML. Microsoft has integrated XML features into Word and other Office products.
The judgment levies damages and fines against Microsoft of around $290 million dollars as well as the ban on sales of Word.
According to some reports the East Texas courts live in some different legal universe from the rest of the USA. That might explain why a Canadian company is suing a US company from Washington state in a Texas court. It seems a bit of jurisdiction shopping preceded this case.
Microsoft has only their standard remarks when they lose part of a case like this. Redmond is ‘disappointed’ by the judgment and will appeal. “”We believe the evidence clearly demonstrated that we do not infringe and that the i4i patent is invalid.””
For the record, the case is i4i Limited Partnership and Infrastructures for Information Inc vs Microsoft Corp, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Texas, Tyler Division. At the time of writing the courts web site www.txed.uscourts.gov was down.
