Office applications Toolkit

Story: Microsoft ordered to stop selling Word

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Live by the sword, die by the sword?

"Die" is a bit of an exaggeration — Word will be back on sale before you know it — but it's interesting to see Microsoft on the receiving end of some of its own tactics.

For once, they have my sympathy. Irrespective of whether the XML file format Word uses is open, proprietary or known only to Tibetan monks, it doesn't do anything that XML wasn't designed to do in the first place. The patent concerned covers a use so obvious it's ridiculous. It's rather like someone inventing the Swiss Army Knife, then someone else being able to patent using one to cut bits of wood.

Microsoft has a dilemma: Pay i4i off, and carry on using its own patents in a similar manner, or prove that the patent is invalid — as I believe it is — and risk setting a precedent that may have a negative effect on itself.

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