Jury awards i4i $200 million in damages in Microsoft patent suit
By Donald Melanson 
posted May 21st 2009 2:02PM
posted May 21st 2009 2:02PM
It's not quite on the level of some of Microsoft's past patent showdowns, but a Texas federal jury found yesterday that the company should pay a still hefty $200 million in damages to Canadian software firm i4i Ltd for some supposed wrong doing. That company had alleged that Microsoft knowingly infringed on one of its patents in both Word and Vista, which apparently concerned "manipulating a document's content and architecture separately." For its part, Microsoft unsurprisingly begs to differ, and says that "the evidence clearly demonstrated that we do not infringe and that the i4i patent is invalid," adding that it will, of course, "ask the court to overturn the verdict."
Microsoft knowingly infringed on a patent?!
No, no, must check sanity meter.
You have to wonder.. would you make more money from licensing a patent, or, upon noticing that someone like Microsoft is infringing on it, let them, wait for a while till the software with said patent infringement qualities makes some profit.. then Sue them...
@Mike
Considering most patents never make enough to cover the cost of the patent, that's pretty much how the whole industry works. Nobody cares if you infringe until it's worth something.
Really this sounds like one of those things that shouldn't be granted a patent.
Yea, a lot of the patents are sadly like this. Lets just make the most vague patent ever.
I have a patent on a "method of expressing one's self through the use of a medium".
I'm afraid anyone who speaks, writes, blogs, passes a comment or performs an interpretive dance is infringing this patent, and I can therefore sue them for lots of cash! ;)
Sounds more to me like why the hell is a canadian company suing microsoft in texas
Yeah, this pretty much just sounds like TeX, which was made by Donald Knuth back in the 80's.
Lawyer's just got richer !!
Must've been one helluva suit. What, was it made with diamonds?
No it was stitched from patents, the crotch is the internal combustion engine
I am going to get a patent on exchanging currency for goods and/or services and then proceed to sue every business in the world.
Seriously, these no-name "companies" and their vague patents developed merely for trolling is getting out of hand.
It's always the same Texas court where this happens. Now only do we need patent reform, but something should be done with this particular court as well...
an eye for an eye
The price of this eye is $200 mil
are you happy now engadget? microsoft is just like usa, because of its great being everyone wants to sue them
Yet unlike the USA, Microsoft does not owe the rest of the world the rest of the world.
yeah, we really owe the rest of the world! guess all those times we've helped everyone else out don't mean jack eh? say, next time Japan or Germany decides to start something, don't come running to us. Solve your own problem.
I guess helping out with afghanistan and iraq isn't enough.
USA profited from WW1 by selling arms to Germany
USA profited from WW2 by selling loans to anyone and everyone
They fought back against Japan because they got pawned at Pearl Harbour.
First of all, selling loans is completely different to what you are referring to, which is granting loans and I would that in light of the economics that led us where we are today you would have picked that up. Second of all, would you expect money to be handed out for free? If you resent that interest was paid, then you must value those countries very cheaply. You might also note that Japan's post-war economy only succeeded because the US assisted in rebuilding the wartime damage. But go ahead - making money off of a risk is evil. That's why countries where usury is illegal are so renowned for their excellent civil rights....
what the type of a brain washed human being you are?
Who can't enjoy a nice bed-time story of Microsoft getting sued, its like the fairytale dragon getting his car clamped, then punched in the groin for being such a pest.
You have such a way with metaphors.. :D
I beg to differ
Depends on when it was filed. Part of the problem is how prevalent computers have become... a lot of what was novel and reasonably patentable 15 years ago is just common practice now.
Not knowing the details of the actual patent, I do have some sympathy for people who come up with something so simple and useful that it's immediately copied and then deemed "obvious" because everyone does it. That's exactly the type of thing you want and need to patent to protect, and also the kind that everyone hates you for if you enforce it.
Well, based on the little amount of info on the patent in Engadget's blurb, I was doing what it describes in WordPerfect for DOS back in the late 80s. Reveal Codes could be used to do precisely that.
It would be cheaper just to buy that Company, take all its patents, fire everyone, and then leave it for dead, and consider it the cost of doing business.
more fun, too!
If Microsoft paid off every BS company that sued them just to settle a suit, they would literally be out of money.
The alternative is to go to court and have the jury ignore all the facts of the case and only listen to plaintiff's story about how much money the company makes. Because everybody thinks it's cool to hate Microsoft and even cooler to give away their money.
Between a rock and a hard place.
And winning a case as a defendant in ED Texas is almost impossible.
Patent for manipulation of data? Really. Who owns the patent for the process that auto capitalizes the first letter of a sentence in an application? It has already been said, but some of these patents are just silly. We definately need some reforms. I am all for protecting the rights of innovators. But this SOUNDS pretty frivolous.
go i4i!!!! I used to work there a few years back and I don't think M$ will win that appeal. I wonder what kind of bonuses their be getting this year.
Why would you root for i4i who is, essentially, an unknown company with few prospects with a patent that is inherently illogical?
Because he worked there?
Not something against Apple, but Engadget "reporting" something negative against Microsoft while not something Apple negative:
http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2009/04/apple-found-guilty-of-willful-patent-infringement.ars
Notice some of the same legal jargon was used, specifically wilfully.
I still think it's so funny that, whenever we have a patent infringement post, people ignorantly talk about the vagueness of patents and what can/cannot be patented.
Microsoft deserved it, they always copy ideas but does not give credit for them.
I mean, really; if somone stole your idea, and made Vista, would you say anything!??!!?
That was just epic XD
Patent trolls strike again!
It was about how Microsoft Word used XML.
Apparently, despite XML being an open language, you can patent the process in which you use XML. So as of today, I'm patenting the use of English Language to construct unwritten sentences to be processed by a computer.
Everyon needs to dig a little deeper before getting all riled up. If you read the patent and understand it, it's about how to separate content from structure WITHOUT using tags in the document. XML uses tags in the document, so the lawsuit is not about Word using XML. Do some research and don't take vague blogs at face value.
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=12&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=5,787,449&OS=5,787,449&RS=5,787,449
Always in Texas this shit happens....Always.
I already have a patent that when a person farts, it can wirelessly 'twit' to peoples wireless handsets and to the cloud with my current status in about 145 characters or less. I should sue Tweet!
I have a quick question for i4i : WHO THE HELL ARE YOU ?? It's always the same stuff.... some weirdo company with a "patent" in their hands waiting to bite some big ass companies... *sigh* this will never end........
Patent should include technical specification on how they create the product they have the patent for.
Then, check how the other company does it. If it's the same, guilty, if not, let it go.
How can we patent an idea?! Everyone can have ideas ... if you think you have the ability to realize that idea, be the first to do it and patent the tchnical mean!
Cheap R&D by MS -- steal others IP and use it in yours, making BILLIONS! Pretty slick.
Patents are not really checked for validity until there is a trial for patent infringement.
My opinion is that all software patents can be proved invalid.
In fact, "should" be proved invalid.
You can't "patent" anything that has to do with XML. It's an open source set of guidelines for structuring data, that's all. It's not a program, it's not a device, it's not the intelectual property of anyone, and it's not even a language. You can copyright a particular language written with XML, but that has nothing to do with "patents". This is a stupid case, and so is the court that settled it..,if i4i wants anyone to believe any different they better offer up some particulars on the patent to the public.
You're right, Tree83, that you can't patent using XML. I read the patent, and it's about recording metadata in a file separate from the document without puting tags in the document. The big problem I see is that patents are very difficult to read, and it's hard to determine exactly what is being patented.
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=12&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=5,787,449&OS=5,787,449&RS=5,787,449
Wow that's an ass patent... if they replaced "XML" with "a scripting/programming language" all programmers in the world would infringe it.
I should patent this idea called "faster than light transport of passengers and cargo", so if anyone invents warp drive I can sue them when they get stinking rich from it.