Latest Microsoft Patent Describes Method of Losing Patent Infringement Suits
by John Paczkowski
Posted on May 21, 2009 at 7:29 AM PT
2009 is proving to be a year of dubious distinction for Microsoft in patent litigation. On Wednesday the company was ordered to pay $200 million to Toronto-based i4i for willfully infringing its patents. Seems Microsoft used some of i4i’s XML technology in Word 2003 and, though it was apprised of its violation, used it in Word 2007 as well. Said i4i lawyer Douglas Cawley: “E-mails from Microsoft show they knew about the patent and infringed to make i4i products obsolete.”
The $200 million verdict is the second-largest patent jury award this year, the largest of all–coincidentally, I’m sure–being the $388 million verdict against Microsoft won by Singapore’s Uniloc in April over an infringement of its security technology. Then, as in the i4i case and most other patent rulings that haven’t gone its way, Redmond responded with incredulity, claiming it couldn’t have possibly infringed on the patent because the patent is invalid. “We believe the evidence clearly demonstrated that we do not infringe and that the i4i patent is invalid,” said David Bowermaster, a Microsoft spokesman, in the company’s now boilerplate statement on such matters. “We believe this award of damages is legally and factually unsupported, so we will ask the court to overturn the verdict.”
Comments
I think Microsoft also has a defensive patent in place on the use of addition and subtraction. So if i4i does any arithmetic in their XML handling MS can probably counter sue.
It is of course a very good thing for “innovation” that MS “re-invented” a technique for saving documents rather than use the already existing standard used by Open Office.
I think Microsoft may have also patented the use of “\” as a replacement for “/” in Unix commands. What would we do without their constant search for new ways of doing things.
Posted by Mac Beach at May 21st, 2009 at 1:21 pm