Small Canadian firm wins $290m lawsuit vs Microsoft:

[chrisk]

This is interesting:
TheStar.com | Business | Small Toronto firm wins $290M suit against Microsoft

A small Canadian company wins a $290m patent suit over a MS Word feature; judge says MS must stop selling Word within 60 days. MS will appeal of course, and I assume if it looks like they will lose again, MS will probably offer a huge settlement before sales ever stopped.

[FiXT]

wow - not a bad judgement in terms of cash - but also an injunction! That's quite the ruling - I'm surprised that the company went for both and didn't try and work on a higher settlement.

MS should have just bought them out :P

[chrisk]

Originally Posted by FiXT

wow - not a bad judgement in terms of cash - but also an injunction! That's quite the ruling - I'm surprised that the company went for both and didn't try and work on a higher settlement.

MS should have just bought them out :P

Yeah the injunction was what caught my attention. They would have to stop selling Office in 60 days, or take the infringing feature out of the product. This is why MS will tie this up in the courts as long as possible, until an agreement could be reached.

Wonder if this company has any stock offered?

[geokilla]

DailyTech - Texas Judge Bans Microsoft From Selling Word in the U.S.

I didn't read the details of the patent myself, but according to the comments, it's a very stupid, broad, patent. I shall quote some stuff from DailyTech.

First of all, the docx extension is not "Open Office XML", but "Office Open XML" and is a MS format that has nothing to do with Open Office. Your mistake is very misleading.

Second, that patent is retarded and the patent system itself is retarded to allow it. The judge for this ruling is also retarded, as is the US legal system in general.

Hi visual,
Fixed the error, thanks!

I also added the link to the patent on the USPTO site, as another op suggested.

If you read the patent, I think most will agree that it is overly broad and vague. Should be interesting to see if Microsoft can fight this.

Seriously. That patent would make XML illegal. Not just Microsoft's format. Not to mention things like utilizing HTML and CSS to create a webpage since the content is in HTML and the architecture in CSS.

And as much as I love Texas, I don't believe a state judge can bar Microsoft from selling Word in the entire US.

[chrisk]

Originally Posted by geokilla

DailyTech - Texas Judge Bans Microsoft From Selling Word in the U.S.

I didn't read the details of the patent myself, but according to the comments, it's a very stupid, broad, patent. I shall quote some stuff from DailyTech.

From the article linked:

The patent in question relates to so-called "extensible mark-up language," or XML, which allows users to create forms and templates in Word with tagged fields. The information in those fields can then be managed in a database.
For example, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration uses the feature to help track information about prescription drugs.

Its about how the tags are applied in Word docs.

[bojangles]

Truly a stupid patent, but man did M$ ever get pwned. Besides the company isn't looking to stop the selling of MS's products...

[Sushi Warrior]

I have a feeling this will be settled out of court and one lucky Canadian company holding a certain patent will get rich.

[SKYMTL]

The US patent laws need some serious revision and this is just another example of why.

[DaleF]

Yay for abuses of patent law!

[silent1mezzo]

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