If you plan to go legally and have a Microsoft Office license, you would better hurry up, because starting January 11th the Office suite will be retired from selling, after a decision of U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Microsoft was sued by XML specialists from i4i for breaking patents for xml, docx, and docm files after the giant from Redmond integrated XML algorithms, proprietary of i4i, in their productivity suite. According to the court Microsoft captured more than 80% XML market with Word, making i4i to change its business strategy. Microsoft has only 60 days to remove this feature from the suite, if it plans to sell the product after January 11th.
On the other side Microsoft said that it`s going to remove the technology covered by the injunction from Microsoft Office 2007 which will be sold from January , and beta version of Microsoft Office 2010 doesn’t contain the patent. I4i is a Canadian company that shipped a XML plugin for Office, which redesigned the USPTO database around XML to make it compatible with Word in 2000. In fact the whole problem is not the XML patent but special algorithms designed to read and write a custom XML code.
Microsoft lost again in issues regarding patents, proprietary technologies and now pays for mistakes made in the past and for abusing their monopole position in the 90s and after 2000. Market regulators, companies, consumer’s wrights defenders started to take measures against Microsoft, courts are releasing sentences, and sanctions appear. Bad times are coming for Microsoft and the company must pay large amounts of money and change market policies to solve infringements and disputes.
Microsoft Office 2010
via Reuters
