Microsoft Ordered to Stop Selling Word and Pay $290 million
On Tuesday, a court ruled that Microsoft has to stop selling their Microsoft Word and Excel products starting January 11 if they are unable to remove technology they have determined as already patented by Canadian company i4i. This case has been kept somewhat under the radar, and the court actually found in August that i4i’s claim of patent-infringement on their XML technology was true.
The original ruling made months ago was for Microsoft to remove Word from stores by October. However, appeals kept pushing the date back, and the court upheld its ruling, making the company remove them by January 11 instead. The court also ordered Microsoft to pay a $290 million fine, along with interest and court costs, as they plainly knew about the patent.
Microsoft director of public affairs Kevin Kutz, says that the company has been getting ready for the possibility that the court would uphold its original judgment, so they have already started to remove the XML feature from their 2007 versions of the programs. This means that they expect to release the same programs without the feature in the US by the due date, he continued, as well as put out a Microsoft 2010 beta version, which will not have the technology covered by the injunction.
So it looks as though the so-called ‘ban’ on selling Microsoft Word and Excel in the US isn’t going to be that big of deal. Most people that use the programs probably don’t know and won’t know that this case has been going on - with help from Microsoft - and they will never be able to tell the difference.