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."
cynical (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:cynical (Score:1, Insightful)
They didn't lift code from i4i. It appears you can't see past your hatred of Microsoft.
Oh wait, this is Slashdot.
Live by the sword, die by the sword (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:If they get hit enough like that... (Score:5, Insightful)
In this case, they've been trying to do everything but. So far, their defense strategy has been to attempt to paint i4i as a patent troll who never had a product, and therefore should not have been granted a patent. That's kind of silly considering that i4i actually does have a product, and if you look at the screenshot on this page describing one of their products [i4i.com], it's apparent that they have had an implementation of their patent for quite a while (Word 2000 is pictured).
So far, they haven't actually attacked the patent because doing so might invalidate one or more of their own patents. They haven't attacked the patent system or any patent laws not only because they have considerable resources invested in that patent system, but because any change in the patent system really needs to happen at the legislative level and it really isn't likely that a court is going to invalidate the entire patent system.
As much as I'd like to see Microsoft directly attack the patent system itself and fight for patent reform, I just don't think it's going to happen in a court room, and I don't see Microsoft fighting a system in earnest that they have profited so much from.
And I don't blame them. It isn't up to them to bring about patent reform. It's ultimately up to We, The People.
Re:Lifting code? Say what? (Score:5, Insightful)
They partnered with i4i until they learned enough about the code, then kicked i4i in the butt and came out with their own implementation.
This is worse than when M$ accuses Wine/Samba etc for 'cloning' their products.
Wine/Samba etc coders didn't have the chance to READ and STUDY the original code.
Re:If they get hit enough like that... (Score:2, Insightful)
It isn't up to them to bring about patent reform.
So M$ is owned and run by aliens now?
They are people and have just as much responsibility as anybody to try and fix the system. More so because they have financial clout and the ears of legislature.
Or to put it another way: being part of a company doesn't give the people involved a mystical get-out-of-jail free card to be irresponsible or unethical.
Re:If they get hit enough like that... (Score:5, Insightful)
"Or to put it another way: being part of a company doesn't give the people involved a mystical get-out-of-jail free card to be irresponsible or unethical."
I disagree. We, the people of the west, have allowed our governments and corporations to turn the ideals of free market action into an unholy marriage between all three arms of government and the powerful elite of the private sector. We have allowed powerful members of industry and government to usurp the right to do anything they want, so long as they can afford lawyers to justify their actions, ethical or otherwise. Don't like it? Sorry, it's a two party system, and both parties play the same game. You want real change? Sorry, you won't get it by voting.
Re:cynical (Score:4, Insightful)
So you think that operating in and earning billions from a foreign market shouldn't be reason to be subject to the jurisdiction of that foreign market?
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Ignore Anti MS Rhetoric (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Ignore Anti MS Rhetoric (Score:1, Insightful)
It will never happen, both of those companies have arsenals of patents at their disposal. They cross license them against potential opposition. Having a huge portfolio of patents means anyone suing them will undoubtedly infringe one of their own. You can bet your bottom dollar MS are trawling through their stack looking for something i4i have infringed. MS merely need to delay and delay some more, sooner or later they'll find what they want and force cross licensing or i4i having to face being sued themselves by a vastly more resource corporation. This is why software patents should not exist. Ultimately, a small number of players will control the world of them like oil, pharma, telcos etc.
Time for a 'new XML', perhaps (Score:5, Insightful)
i4i may have 'a product', but really isn't anything particularly incredible ... it's basically just XML authoring via parsed-back transformed output. Whoopty-do - this is something quite basic and that could and should become commonplace in many, many different applications in future. A 'product' does not make a patent-able invention. Microsoft may be abusing the system, but i4i is worse, they're still behaving like a blatant patent troll, probably because their 'product' just isn't special anymore. We're just talking about a fight between two unethical companies ... much as I can't stand Microsoft, i4i is even worse here - they're actually *doing* what Microsoft so far has only had the veiled threat of doing via their patents.
Now the real problem with all this (as well as MS's own patents on XML-based word processing) is that it has destroyed the entire purpose of XML. XML was adopted by industry as a counter-measure to the many proprietary binary "lock-in" formats of the 80s and 90s. Initially it seemed like it was going to serve this purpose, but XML is now so ridiculously over-encumbered with bogus, obvious patents that it's impossible to create any "serious" useful new XML-based applications without infringing patents. In other words, industry has succeeded in making XML the "new" proprietary lock-in format.
MS and i4i will both continue to make reams of money relative to their sizes. The real losers here are the general public, customers of the IT industry, and potential small-business competitors/entrepreneurs.
Time for a new "XML"? This time, with a stipulation in the licensing that no patents may be made over the format.
Re:cynical (Score:2, Insightful)
In this case, the "They're a convicted monopoly" argument is a ton of BS. (Specifically, a metric ton.) EVERY Operating System comes with the official browser of the people who made the operating system. Apple comes with Safari by default. Debian comes with Iceweasel. A KDE 3.5 system comes with Konqueror. ChromeOS will include Chrome. People expect a browser to be there, and the logic for everyone else seems to be "If they want A browser, we'll give them OUR browser." That seems to me like it should make perfect sense for Apple, Microsoft, and everyone else.
By the way, the complaint was brought by Opera, which is a European company. They said it should be the top 5 browsers by market share SPECIFICALLY because they are number 5. If they were number 8, they'd be looking for the top 8 browsers in the menu. (By the way, after IE, the browsers go Firefox, Chrome, Safari, and Opera. It says something about Opera that Safari for Windows (which is horrible) is beating them.) The only reason the EU took this case was to benefit a European company at the expense of an American one. Oh, and they get to tax the American company. (That's what this fine is, a tax.) AND tools on Slashdot will think "M$ bad, therefore EU good" and mod you up to +4 insightful, and maybe vote for the incumbents the next time there's EU elections.
The bottom line here is that legislating the market away is not a just thing. It's bad when you're legislating everyone else out of the market, but it's also bad when you're legislating yourself into the market. That's the ONLY thing Opera is doing here.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)