No more 'Word' for Microsoft

An American federal court has upheld a patent violation ruling against Microsoft Corp related to Microsoft Word by restraining the software giant from selling the product in the US.

In August, a lower court in Texas had directed Microsoft to pay damages worth $290 million to Canadian software entity i4i for patent infringements related to Microsoft Word in addition to stopping the world's largest software company from selling the offering.

The verdict was upheld by the US court of appeals for the federal circuit in Washington on Tuesday.

The litigation is related to patent infringements of Extensible Mark-up Language (XML) used in Microsoft Word. The Canada-based technology firm i4i claimed that it had the patent for 'Custom XML' used in the Word software.

An XML is a mark-up language, which offers editing capabilities and for formatting text, among others.

"We couldn't be more pleased with the ruling from the appeals court which upheld the lower court's decision in its entirety. This is both a vindication for us and a war-cry for talented inventors whose patents are infringed," i4i Chairman Loudon Owen said in a statement on Tuesday post-ruling.

The federal court's injunction would be effective from January 11, 2010.

Reacting to the verdict, Microsoft said it is moving quickly to comply with the injunction. However, its Public Affairs director Kevin Kutz said the injunction applies only to the copies of Microsoft Word 2007 and Microsoft Office 2007 sold in the US on or after the injunction date.

Microsoft said it expects to have have copies of Microsoft Word 2007 and Office 2007 without the particular feature, available for sale and distribution in the US by the injunction date.

"We have been preparing for this possibility since the district court issued its injunction in August 2009 and have already put the wheels in motion to remove this little-used feature from these products," Kutz said in a separate statement after the ruling.

The Beta versions of Microsoft Word 2010 and Microsoft Office 2010, which are available now for downloading, do not contain the technology covered by the injunction, the statement added.

In August, the lower court had also restrained Microsoft from "selling, offering to sell and/or importing in or into the US any infringing and future Word products that have the capability of opening a .XML, .DOCX or .DOCM file containing custom XML".

According to i4i founder Michel Vulpe, the ruling "is a clear and convincing evidence that our case is just and right, and that Microsoft wilfully infringed our patent".

Meanwhile, Microsoft's Kutz pointed out that the company is also considering its legal options, which could include a request for a rehearing, among others.