i4i/Microsoft Patent Dispute Deeper Than I Thought

Posted by | 08/12/2009 | 4 Comments

Today’s news that an injunction has been issued against Microsoft for selling Microsoft Office Word in the States caused me to put on my sleuthing cap and take a closer look at the action.

First, due to my disdain of patent trolls, I always check to see if the plaintiff in these types of cases is a patent holding company. That’s definitely not the case with i4i, the company with the suit against Microsoft. Looks to me like a reputable document management company, and I’m sure they are or have been employing the methodology they’ve patented. I found the press release announcing their previous court award of $200M. Presumably Microsoft is still fighting the payout, in which case the injunction is probably further leverage. Sounds pretty normal so far.

But then I discovered news from just a few days ago that Microsoft had been awarded its own patent for storing word-processing documents in XML format. Per Ars Technica:

The patent was filed back in late 2004 and was apparently approved only this month. It’s entitled “Word-processing document stored in a single XML file that may be manipulated by applications that understand XML,” but it appears to cover the use of an entire class of XML documents by any word processing program.

Now that’s interesting. Using an injunction to fight for an award is fairly mundane, but the injunction coming hot on the heels of Microsoft being awarded a patent to use XML documents in any word processing program gets my attention. So, is the injunction just leverage to get the award, or was it spurred by this wide-reaching patent that could break the initial claim and possibly immunize Microsoft against any other lawsuits? Either way, I’m looking forward to seeing if or how Microsoft will exercise their newly awarded patent to get out of this.

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Category: Software

About the Author (Author Profile)

My name is Mark Sumimoto; I am Sumocat. I dabble in all areas of mobile computing, but my focus is Windows-based Tablet PCs and pen input. They’ve been part of my arsenal since 2004, and I’m proud to have pioneered the field of ink blogging, earning a spot as a Microsoft MVP for Touch and Tablets in the process. My current tools include a Fujitsu Lifebook T900, TEGA v2, and iPhone 4. Email me: sumocat [at] notebooks.com
  • GoodThings2Life

    Sorry, but the way I see it… this is the same district count that has awarded other BS patient holders in the past.

    How am I supposed to take this seriously when we have a Toronto company using a Texas count to sue a Washington company?

    They may hold a patent, and they may use said patent, but that doesn’t make the patent valid.

  • GoodThings2Life

    court* not count, lol

  • longhairjnr

    By that logic I could rip off any of Microsoft’s patents and not worry? Well probably until I became a large corp. and threaten Microsoft’s margins, then I would be put to sleep quickly. What part of hold and use makes the patent void? Microsoft as great of a company it is still holds and has used many BS patents but they are still seen as valid, FAT32 is that a valid patent? Simply put Microsoft should have, if they know of the patent, paid a royalty to use the patent, if they did not know they should back pay for the royalty’s. Microsoft is a big company and it should have the same rules for itself as it does for it’s competitors.

  • GoodThings2Life

    I agree, and I didn’t say anything to support Microsoft’s multiple BS patents!

    Patenting a product is fine. Patenting an idea that is unique is fine. Patenting an idea that is obvious is not fine, and I don’t care who the company is.

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