Court Upholds Microsoft Judgment

A federal appeals court on Tuesday upheld a $290 million judgement against Microsoft Corp. and issued an injunction that will prevent the sale of its popular Word software.

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.

Michel Vulpe, founder and co-inventor of i4i, said in a statement that the company is pleased with the decision, calling it "an important step in protecting the property rights of small inventors."

Microsoft said it has been preparing for such a judgment since August. Copies of Word and Office sold before Jan. 11 aren't affected by the court's decision. And Microsoft said it has "put the wheels in motion to remove this little-used feature" from versions of Word 2007 and Office 2007 that would be sold after that date.

"Beta" or test versions of Word 2010 and Office 2010, expected to be finalized next year, do not contain the offending code, the software maker said.

Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft said it may appeal further, asking for either a rehearing in front of the appeals court's full panel of judges or in front of the U.S. Supreme Court.

[sjc_1]

Microsoft bought DOS for $50,000 from Seattle Computer to make good on a promise made to IBM. Microsoft told IBM that they had an operating system, when in fact they did not. That was the beginning of the great lie and theft that made Microsoft. When you make a deal with the devil, you have to pay the price sooner or later.

[tomanyt]

Down with Windows. Up with Linux.

[mdbill-2009]

oome on microsoft! you're not as indispensable as you think you are.

[canislupus16]

I hate Word anyway. It's awkward and counter-intuitive. All Microsoft did was copy WordPerfect and change the menus, and then ultimately make Word far more complicated than it need be. I still use WordPerfect - it is faster, the menus are simpler and they are intuitive. Since Microsoft has bullied the world into its software and Congress and the courts are too weak-kneed to call unfair competition for what it is, I have to operate Word and translate WordPerfect into it. However, Microsoft has tried its hardest to wipe out all vestiges of competition by no longer including a translation feature. It is the only software publisher I am familiar with that excludes translation features.

MS did the sale thing with Excel - they copied Lotus 1-2-3 to start, and then made Excel far more complicated and counter-intuitive than it needed to be as well.

[us_1776]

A whole empire built on theft of other people's brilliant and innovative ideas and hard work.