Microsoft Hit With Injunction From Selling “Word”
According to PC Magazine, Microsoft’s Word program has been found to violated the patent of a Canadian technology company, i4i.
Microsoft was fined by the court $290 Million (small change to Microsoft) but the judge also ordered Microsoft to stop selling the program within 60 days.
The judge ruled that Word products may not “have the capability of opening a .XML, .DOCX, or .DOCM file (“an XML file”) containing custom XML.”
However the judge noted if Word was modified so that it could open the files that would eliminate the custom XML, subject to the patent, the injunction would not apply. Likewise, the injunction would not apply if the document were opened as plain text.
Microsoft said it would appeal.
Microsoft without Word?
Another game changer?
Loading ...
The patent is quite vague, and when all is said and done, XML was created by W3C for public use. Can i4i, a private company, really expect to dictate to a third party what can and can’t be done with a public markup language?
Well its not just like this company is alleging this.
There has already been a decision in the case and it went against Microsoft.
Perhaps, but they’ll lose on appeal. My guess is that the judge had no idea what the hell was going on.
I mean, really, this is the patent:
A system and method for the separate manipulation of the architecture and content of a document, particularly for data representation and transformations. The system, for use by computer software developers, removes dependency on document encoding technology. A map of metacodes found in the document is produced and provided and stored separately from the document. The map indicates the location and addresses of metacodes in the document. The system allows of multiple views of the same content, the ability to work solely on structure and solely on content, storage efficiency of multiple versions and efficiency of operation.
That could apply to just about anything. The patent doesn’t even mention XML.
In fact, the more you read the patent, the more it becomes apparent that they’ve basically just tried to patent XML.
W3C XML = 10th Feb 1998
Patent filing date = 28 Jun 1998
From the original XML standard:
“A software module called an XML processor is used to read XML documents and provide access to their content and structure”
First line of the patent:
“A system and method for the separate manipulation of the architecture and content of a document”
Chris
Well appearently they were successful, as despite having some high powered lawyers I’m sure Microsoft had representing it, the judge awarded hundreds of millions and the injunction
In that case it will be interesting to see how this pans out. It seems that i4i have gone after Microsoft as they’re the biggest target, but the patent essentially covers any editor that edits an XML document. So XML documents can exist (like RSS for example), but you can’t create them in the first place, or if God created one from Adam’s rib, you couldn’t edit it.
…or the appeal judge will rule the XML standard as prior art.
Chirs
You might want to read this for more background and analysis
http://www.betanews.com/joewilcox/article/Is-Microsoft-violator-or-victim-in-i4i-patent-dispute/1250119565
Interesting, but it still comes down to the fact that XML is an open standard. The phrase “custom XML” keeps appearing, but therein lies the problem – all XML is custom. In fact, that’s XML’s purpose – to represent customized data in a standardized format.
i4i shouldn’t be able to patent the use of XML to store document data any more than I should be able to patent the use of XML to store news or blog data (RSS), or any of the hundreds of other custom uses for XML.
Put another way, it’s like someone trying to patent the use of C++ for writing payroll software. Just because they wrote some software in an open language doesn’t mean that someone else can’t write competing payroll software in C++. That would be absurd.
XML is an open standard and that isn’t going to change. You can’t patent XML itself but you can patent the use of XML for a specific application.
Just like you can’t patent iron, but if you discover a certain dose of iron each day can help treat a certain disease, you can patent the use of iron as a treatment for that disease. That means anybody else selling iron pills for that purpose is infringing your patent.
Hopefully this is another nail in the coffin of the idiocy called OOXML.
Brad, that’s a good point about chemical uses. Would this mean that anyone with enough money could patent the use of major programming languages for specific applications? Let’s say I’m Microsoft – can I patent the use of C, C++, Pascal, Java etc in the use of document editing systems, thereby eliminating my competition?
Assuming there was no prior art, could I patent the use of Perl, PHP, Java, Javascript, XML and HTML for use in applications which transfer data over a global network?
Where does it end I wonder?
Patents & TMs are all easily abused. A better system of checks and balances is neccessary.
UPDATE
A hearing on this case has been scheduled for Sept 23:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10314756-56.html?tag=nl.e703
UPDATE
Today (9/4) a appellate court granted Microsoft a stay from the injunction:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-10805_3-10345032-75.html?tag=nl.e703