Small Canadian firm wins $290m lawsuit vs Microsoft:

[Jonwall]

Originally Posted by silent1mezzo

I'm slightly ashamed to be Canadian due to the actions of this firm.

Why? Microsoft KNOWINGLY used this without permission, and has been doing so for years. They deserve this lawsuit otherwise theyll just go one doing whatever they want because people who actually have the patents are too scared to take on MS

[Neolithium_Wpg]

Hahahahaha, Microsoft gets WTFPwned in court again

[silent1mezzo]

Originally Posted by Jonwall

Why? Microsoft KNOWINGLY used this without permission, and has been doing so for years. They deserve this lawsuit otherwise theyll just go one doing whatever they want because people who actually have the patents are too scared to take on MS

This patent is so blatantly overstretched its not even funny. This company could technically sue me for patent infringement. This patent should never have been accepted and the judge should never have awarded what he did.

While I don't always agree with the way Microsoft does stuff, I don't think they're in the wrong this time.

[Pansophic]

Yea definitely, this is one stupid patent and I hope it gets escalated far enough for the supreme court to see how slow their patent office are.

[bojangles]

I agree that this is a stupid lawsuit. I was thinking, if it's and Open format, doesn't that entitle anyone to use it? It's not like Microsoft makes money from using the OpenXML format, they just use it because it's Open. If it can be read by other programs, what's not to like? I really see no problem with what MS did.

[Squeetard]

I'm going to Patent the up and down motion while brushing your teeth and sue you all.

[Sushi Warrior]

Originally Posted by Squeetard

I'm going to Patent the up and down motion while brushing your teeth and sue you all.

I'll get the back and forth or maybe even the oval technique. Beat that.

[Andy]

Originally Posted by Squeetard

I'm going to Patent the up and down motion while brushing your teeth and sue you all.

Originally Posted by Sushi Warrior

I'll get the back and forth or maybe even the oval technique. Beat that.

hahaha ... go for it.

[Sushi Warrior]

Hell I'll just patent patenting.

[chrisk]

I don't work with xml documents or web programming, so I wonder if somebody can enlighten something for me;

- my understanding is that this lawsuit is not over using the open standards or the xml documents in Word, but a particular method in which tags were applied.

- MS used to license this technology from this company, prior to Office 2003. Since Office 2003, MS just decided to keep using the previously licensed feature without a proper license?

Not arguing the merits of the lawsuit, but this thread and people's comments indicate that I perhaps misunderstand what the lawsuit is about.