Judge orders Microsoft to stop selling Word

Thankful · Aug 12, 2009

http://news.cnet.com/8301-10805_3-10308013-75.html

Pedro · Aug 13, 2009

I have the court documents for you in the i4i v. Microsoft case, the judgment, the permanent injunction, and the memorandum and order, which explains the legal reasoning in support of the order. I also got for you the original complaint by i4i, Microsoft's answer with counterclaim, and i4i's reply to the counterclaim, so you can understand what it was all about. The law firm that won has put out a press release. Microsoft, of course, will appeal. It has 60 days to do so.

You probably think I am delighted. I am not. I hate software patents. And this is precisely why. It is karmic that this happened to Microsoft, who bullies Linux with patent threats and just got an XML patent of its own on August 4th that could, presumably, be used against the entire market. How stupid do we have to be to grant patents on software? On software *standards*? This is what happens. Now do you see it?

FOSS has been taking the lead in trying to educate the world that patents are toxic for software. They disrupt and they block innovation. Software and patents need to get a divorce. You might like to read Red Hat's amicus brief that it submitted in the Bilski case to see why software patents are particularly destructive to the FOSS development model.

As for Microsoft's recent effort to define "open standards" to, as Dana Blankenhorn describes it, "mandate standards bodies to consider patented, protected, proprietary technology on a par with truly open source offerings", what has just happened to the XML standard gives what I consider the absolutely final and complete answer to such a specious argument. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I present Exhibit A. It's not open if a judge can shut it down. Or a vendor. Is that hard?

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Groklaw

elapsed · Aug 13, 2009

Comical, now I truly do feel sorry for Microsoft.

Pedro · Aug 18, 2009

Microsoft Files Emergency Motion to Stay Execution of Judgment in i4i

Microsoft on August 14th filed a sealed motion, in response to the August 11 judgment and injunction against it in i4i v. Microsoft. I can't show you a sealed motion, obviously, but here's the docket entry, to at least give you a clue:
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Groklaw

Pedro · Aug 18, 2009

Why didn't Microsoft tell us about i4i's patent litigation during the OOXML standards push?

I have a question for Microsoft. Why didn't they tell us about this i4i patent litigation during the OOXML ISO process? Didn't we need to know?

The litigation began on March 8, 2007 when i4i filed its complaint. That is back in the very earliest days of the OOXML saga, when Ecma was answering some critics inside the ISO process who thought Ecma 376, later to be named OOXML, shouldn't be put on the fast track. It was officially put on the fast track by ISO a couple of days later anyhow. Remember all that? That's pretty much how OOXML got to be a standard, actually, I'd say, in microcosm. Techies pointed out issues, and some higher up would say, So what? Over and over and over. Until it was over. And now look what you've got. You should listen to techies, folks, when the issue is tech.

Anyone recall anyone mentioning an i4i patent that could make customXML unusable in the entire United States?
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Groklaw

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