Microsoft has been granted a stay of a landmark injunction in a patent-infringement case that would have required the software giant to stop selling Word in its current form by next month.
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Thursday granted Microsoft's motion for a stay, pending appeal, of an injunction issued in August by a federal judge that bars sales of Word that include a custom XML code found to infringe on patents held by the plaintiff, i4i.
"We are happy with the result and look forward to presenting our arguments on the main issues on 23 September," Microsoft spokesman Kevin Kutz said in a statement.
In response to the court's decision, i4i expressed confidence in its position and accused Microsoft of using "scare tactics".
"Microsoft's scare tactics about the consequences of the injunction cannot shield it from the imminent review of the case by the Federal Circuit Court of Appeal on the 23 September appeal," i4i chairman Loudon Owen said in a statement.
"i4i is confident that the final judgement in favour of i4i, which included a finding of wilful patent infringement by Microsoft and an injunction against Microsoft Word, was the correct decision and that i4i will prevail on the appeal."
Toronto-based i4i sued Microsoft in March 2007 alleging that the software giant violated its 1998 patent (No 5,787,449) for a document system that eliminated the need for manually embedded formatting codes.
In May, a jury ordered Microsoft to pay $200m (£120m) for infringing on a patent held by i4i.
In filing its formal appeal last week, Microsoft made a number of arguments for overturning the infringement finding, saying the judge made several procedural errors and failed to live up to his role as "gatekeeper".
In addition to pursuing its appeal, Microsoft has other options, including creating a technical workaround, removing the XML function or reaching a settlement with i4i.
i4i has said it is not seeking to torpedo Word, but does want the infringing custom XML code removed.
Talkback
having read the patent, its pretty woolly, and could potentially apply to any software that includes any form of meta-data, including web-pages, to me it smacks of BT's failed attempt to own the internet by claiming ownership of all hyperlinks.
For once, I'm on MS's side, companies should be stopped from registering patents and other marks simply to impede intellectual development
And how many patents has MS registered on code they did not write? In the end Ms will prevail, because they have too many judges in their hip pocket. And, lets face it, what MS wants, MS gets. Period.
This just highlights all the ways in which the patent system is constantly abused by many, so in a sense this is good for us all that these issues come to the surface, so let them knock seven bells out of each other.
I re-read the patent again, I'm not sure why since its about as clear as mud as to what EXACTLY they are describing as a "process".
It sounds like the worst possible combination of PostScript, CSS and DTD mark-up languages. As a specification for a project, the patent filing reads like the worst possible visual basic script.
A handicapped friend of mine, (his handicap is that he's an attorney) tells me that he calls those patents "Woolly-Bullies" since its hard to tell from all the fuzz around the meat whether you have beef or sheep.
It also sort of reminds me of a Duck Dodger in the 24th and a half century LooneyTunes cartoon with Porky Pig and Marvin the Martian. A big red woolly creature gets a hair cut by Porky while Daffy Duck pontificates in his role. Once Porky is done, there's only a pair of tennis shoes left. I suspect that there isn't even a pair of shoes in that patent once the fuzz is removed.
/home/les/Desktop/105794.jpg i say to hell with this nonsense its all free i,m giving it all to charity[thats my son]?