Federal Court Grants Microsoft Expedited Appeal 88
patentpundit writes "On Friday, August 21, 2009, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit granted Microsoft an expedited appeal of its patent infringement loss to i4i Limited Partnership. On August 11, 2009, Microsoft lost a $300 million judgment for infringing the XML patents of i4i by selling Word. Microsoft was given 60 days to stop selling Word, or implement work arounds that did not utilize the infringed technology. Microsoft filed an emergency appeal with the Federal Circuit, and requested a stay of the permanent injunction that will force them to stop selling work 60 days from August 11, 2009. The Federal Circuit granted an expedited oral argument, which will take place on September 23, 2009. Microsoft requested an administrative stay of the permanent injunction, which was denied, and then filed a petition to stay the injunction pending appeal. i4i has until August 25, 2009, to respond to Microsoft's request to stay the injunction pending appeal."
Re:cynical (Score:4, Informative)
They seem to have been caught directly lifting code from someone else's stuff who was relying on that to make money and putting it into their own.
They have been accused of patent-infringement. That means that even the patent holders aren't accusing MS of stealing code directly. Had that been the case, MS would have been accused of copyright infringement as well.
Muddying the differences between patents, copyright, and trademark is part of the reason why debates about "intellectual property" is often confused.
Re:cynical (Score:5, Informative)
First, they have been found GUILTY of willful patent infringement, not just accused. Second, if you would actually take the time to read about what MS did [theglobeandmail.com] instead of giving a knee-jerk reaction "Ooh patents are bad!" and comprehend it, you'll see that MS approached i4i about working together on national security issues and then STOLE THEIR CODE.
The only person muddying the waters here is you, because you are trying to paint MS' actions in a decent light, when they are clearly, clearly in the wrong. I can only think that i4i went to court under patent law instead of copyright infringement because they thought it was a more open and shut case. That or, the MS Office programmers were smart enough to cover their tracks and that copyright infringement wasn't possible to prove unequivocally.
Re:Ignore Anti MS Rhetoric (Score:4, Informative)
If you read the patent, you will realise that is isn't patenting XML.
It's "Patenting a system for how to do" a certain thing in XML (actually SGML, but there's no different. That's why Office violates, and OpenOffice doesn't violate. It's the custom XML feature in Office, which isn't actually XML.
Re:cynical (Score:3, Informative)
Your right this is slashdot, also home to some of the worlds biggest Microsoft fanboy's, and/or possibly astoturfers.
What you missed in all this was that you are confusing Copyright and a patent. So here is where you are going off.
1. Patents cover ideas.
2. Copyrights cover the specific use of language.
To infringe on a patent you do not have to copy anything but the idea. It doesn't matter if the words or code are the same or not. But that you implemented the patented idea.
Re:cynical (Score:4, Informative)
Re:cynical (Score:3, Informative)
No need to jump on my throat, pal. Had my reaction been knee-jerk, it would have had a bit more emotional outburst.
First, they have been found GUILTY of willful patent infringement, not just accused.
I stand corrected.
you'll see that MS approached i4i about working together on national security issues and then STOLE THEIR CODE.
I didn't really see that claim in the article you linked to. I might have missed it though as I didn't read it thoroughly. The closest thing to stealing anything, as mentioned in the article, was about MS "pinching the technology".
The only person muddying the waters here is you, because you are trying to paint MS' actions in a decent light, when they are clearly, clearly in the wrong.
You are reading too much into what I wrote. Nowhere did I hint that the actions of MS were justified. Hell, I didn't even hint that patents were a bad thing, just that patents and copyrights were different beasts and it is important to make the distinction every time one talks about them.
That or, the MS Office programmers were smart enough to cover their tracks and that copyright infringement wasn't possible to prove unequivocally.
And how would they hide their tracks and copy code at the same time? I would suppose that they did it by writing their own code but doing things the way covered in the patent granted to i4i, hence patent violation.
Re:Got a link for that? And also... (Score:2, Informative)