Microsoft Word Patent Case Going To Supreme Court

jfruhlinger writes "Microsoft may have had to change Word after being found guilty of violating a Canadian company's patents, but it's still resisting paying for damages — and is taking the fight to the US Supreme Court. If you can't stand either MS or patents, who do you root for here?"

You root for the lawyers

[mysidia]

If you can't stand either MS or patents, who do you root for here?"

The only side certain to win this.

You can hope the patent and patents like it get invalidated, by the way. The patent can get invalidated with Microsoft still being liable.

There are outcomes that satisfy anyone, unless you hate lawyers and multi-million dollar settlements with big corporations too, in which case, you are boned.

Re:Since Microsoft is Evil

[devbox]

Microsoft kind of does oppose software patents. When have you seen them going after other companies if they don't provoke the legal fight first? They have also freed their patents to open and free-to-use patents organizations. The only cases where Microsoft has used their patents portfolio to fight against patent trolls is, well, when the patent troll has started going after MS first.

Ultimately, the whole software patent system is faulty. But currently, companies have to go by it and that means Microsoft has to register their patents too. Blame the system.

Hmm

[ModernGeek]

So Canadian Court says pay money, so you go above them to the US Supreme Court, aka, Court of the World?

Sue the patent office

[MobyDisk]

It is time to sue the patent office, not the patent holders:

The question the Supreme Court must answer is "What burden of proof is required to invalidate a patent?" The difficulty is that the *legal* answer may not match the *real world* answer. In theory, it should require a high burden of proof because the patent office already examined the patent application, determined it was patentable, searched for prior art, etc. But in reality, the patent office isn't doing that. I wish I could find the public statement where they basically said it isn't their responsibility to search for prior art. This problem is amplified by the fact that recent administrations are relying on the patent office to become a revenue generator.

In my opinion, Microsoft should sue the patent office. If the Supreme Court operates under the assumption that the patent office is following a certain procedure, and they are not, then they should have a case against the patent office. Then, they can go back to the courts and invalidate the patent after they have proven that the patent office is not doing their job.

Re:Since Microsoft is Evil

[UnknowingFool]

When have you seen them going after other companies if they don't provoke the legal fight first?

You mean like just last month when they sued Motorola over Android? I guess you're counting Motorola abandoning the Windows Mobile platform in favor of Android as "provoking" MS.

Re:Well, duh.

[naich]

Not really. If Microsoft keep winning their patent suits then from their point of view the patent system is hunky dory and they will continue supporting it and using it themselves, to stifle their competition. If Microsoft lose and it hurts enough, then it might force them to rethink their patent strategy. If the US software patent system hurts them enough and keeps hurting them, they might start lobbying to change it.

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Re:MS is in the wrong here.

[Bent Spoke]

The wheel is obvious, in hindsight. Look, i4i managed to convince MS that the idea was good enough to include in Word. But apparently the idea was not obvious enough that MS thought of it first, independently. In short, theft.

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