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Government says it's got i4i's back in Word patent dispute
As the US Supreme Court prepares to hear yet another appeal in the seemingly unending patent dispute between Microsoft and XML specialists i4i next month, some pretty influential folks are starting to take sides -- officially. Perhaps most notably, Acting Solicitor General Neal Kumar Katyal filed an amicus brief backing i4i and a previous US Court of Appeals decision to uphold the $290 million judgement against the software giant. Other big guns backing i4i with amicus briefs include DuPont, 3M, Johnson & Johnson, Procter & Gamble, and GE. Of course, Microsoft's getting a little help from its friends with official I-got-you-bro statements coming from Google, Apple, Toyota, and Walmart. The appeal is expected to hit the Supreme Court in April and has big implications for patent litigation -- specifically, it could give tech giants like Microsoft more guts to go after patents held by little guys like i4i.
US Supreme Court agrees to hear Microsoft appeal in Word patent case
It's been quite a few months since we've seen any major developments in Microsoft's patent battle with Toronto-based i4i Inc over Microsoft Word, but it looks like things are now about to change in a big way. As The Wall Street Journal reports, the US Supreme Court has today agreed to hear Mircosoft's appeal in the case that dealt it $290 million in damages and prevented it from selling versions of Word that contained the allegedly infringing technology. That could not only have some pretty big ramifications for Microsoft in this particular case, but for patent law in general, as it gets to the very heart of the legal standard for determining the validity of a patent. Needless to say, we'll be watching this one very closely -- the court is expected to hear the case sometime next year.
