Word and Office Banned For Sale Starting January 11th After Microsoft Loses Appeal


Microsoft lost their case in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit which would have stopped the ban of their Microsoft Word and Office products. The patent infringement which was brought about by XML specialists i4i in May 2009 specifically targets how those programs handle a specific XML algorithm.

According to Engadget i4i holds the patent that Microsoft was using to handle .xml, .docx and .docm files, specifically how they handle the algorithms for those file types. While the court originally ruled in favor of i4i Microsoft had appealed the ruling and the barring of sales was stopped. It’s still unclear if Microsoft will once again appeal the decision or ask that it be moved to the U.S. Supreme Court or even settle with i4i.

For Office users who may be curious, i4i isn’t a “patent troll” but rather a company of 30 developers who actually revamped the entire USPTO database for XML file compatibility for MS Word in 2000. i4i also doesn’t hold the full XML patent, just some of the algorithm used to read and write custom XML files.

In response to the decision Microsoft released a statement in which they said Office 2007 and Word 2007 versions that don’t use the “little-used” XML feature will be available for sale by January 11th, while stating that Office 2010 beta “does not contain the technology covered by the injunction.”

Here’s my question to Microsoft. Why even both to include it if it’s a “little used” function? This whole issue could have been avoided by realizing that fact during the build process.

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