Court bans sale of Word; Microsoft has fix ready

[marmar]

Court bans sale of Word; Microsoft has fix ready
AP

By JESSICA MINTZ, AP Technology Writer Jessica Mintz


SEATTLE – A federal appeals court ordered Microsoft Corp. to stop selling its Word program in January and pay a Canadian software company $290 million for violating a patent, upholding the judgment of a lower court.

But people looking to buy Word or Microsoft's Office package in the U.S. won't have to go without the software. Microsoft said Tuesday it expects that new versions of the product, with the computer code in question removed, will be ready for sale when the injunction begins on Jan. 11.

Toronto-based i4i Inc. sued Microsoft in 2007, saying it owned the technology behind a tool in the popular word processing program. The technology in question gives Word users an improved way to edit XML, or code that tells the program how to interpret and display a document's contents.

A Texas jury found that Microsoft Word willfully infringed on the patent. Microsoft appealed that decision, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Tuesday upheld the lower court's damage award and the injunction against future sales of infringing copies of Word. ..........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091222/ap_on_hi_te/us_microsoft_patent;_ylt=AmO2Lf5QLkx0KB_6sUZ27NbxMJA5

[wtmusic]

1. Imagine that...MS taking someone else's ideas nt

[Canuckistanian]

5. I never thought I'd see the day

:eyes:

[regnaD kciN]

2. There's a fix out already...

www.openoffice.org ;-)

[cloudbase]

3. Looks as though

somebody did a bit of forum shopping.

[onehandle]

4. Bill Gates' inept college roommate is going to be writing a big check to i4i Inc.

When is Microsoft going to eject that loser.