Artwork: Chip Taylor
Microsoft's move was expected, as it had previously said it would appeal the verdict and the injunction that resulted from a patent infringement case it lost last May.Posted on 08/20/2009 7:19:00 AM PDT by ShadowAce
Microsoft late Tuesday warned of "massive disruptions" to sales of Office, as well as to partners such as Best Buy, Dell, and Hewlett-Packard, if the injunction that prevents it from selling Word 2003 and Word 2007 in the U.S. after Oct. 10 is not set aside.
In an emergency motion filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals, Microsoft asked that the injunction imposed last week by U.S. District Court Judge Leonard Davis be stayed, or temporarily put on hold, while its appeal is heard.
Artwork: Chip TaylorMicrosoft's move was expected, as it had previously said it would appeal the verdict and the injunction that resulted from a patent infringement case it lost last May.
"Microsoft and its distributors (which include retailers such as Best Buy and OEMs such as HP and Dell) face the imminent possibility of a massive disruption in their sales," Microsoft argued in the motion. "If left undisturbed, the district court's injunction will inflict irreparable harm on Microsoft by potentially keeping the centerpiece of its product line out of the market for months," the firm's lawyers added. "The injunction would block not only the distribution of Word, but also of the entire Office suite, which contains Word and other popular programs."
The patent infringement case brought by Toronto-based i4i in 2007 resulted in a $290 million judgment against Microsoft and an injunction that bars it from selling Word 2003 and Word 2007 after Oct. 10 unless they're altered.
Microsoft also complained to the Court of Appeals that while it has taken steps toward the latter solution, that, too, puts an unfair burden on the company. "Already, Microsoft is expending enormous human and financial capital to make its best effort to comply with the district court's 60-day deadline,"...
(Excerpt) Read more at pcworld.com ...
Oh, yeah, now there's a "feature". [ facepalm ] Sounds like 2007 is even more annoying than 2003, which I recently ditched for an upgrade to 97 -- "The Best Office Yet(tm)".
Elsewhere, Microsoft painted a bleak picture for users. "Even if the injunction will not affect Microsoft's existing Office customers, consumers and businesses who require new copies of Office and Word would be stranded without an alternative set of software."
The second is absurd to the point that they should find him in contempt of court or something. There's Open Office, which I don't like as well as Office. Corel still sells WordPerfect. I assume you can still get Lotus' Suite. But the point is there are MANY alternatives. People don't have them because they don't come pre-installed on their computers, but there are many alternatives.
But what would it mean if the second statement is true? It would mean the first statement is a lie. If Office were so irreplaceable that users would be at a loss without it, how can you say MS would permanently lose the sales from the embargoed period??? Obviously, when MS wins, which according to their story line they will, and Office is back in stores, there would be a big spike in excess sales equal to what would have been sold during those months. These guys can't even make one whiny, falling-sky forecast without contradicting the last one. Or are they saying that once people find out there ARE alternatives, the damage to MS would be permanent? And that it might spread to other MS products?
That having been said, I have no idea how the technology in question could be patentable, but I haven't followed the issue so that doesn't mean very much.
In a perfect world, that would be fine. But, as a consumer who has bought that product, I would strongly object to that. I can only imagine the thousands of businesses that that would sue MS, as well.
One can only guess at how a patch would affect us. LOL
The world of users has created, probably, billions of documents using those features, and without them, we wouldn’t be able to read those documents properly. Nor would they interact with the myriad of other documents we’ve created that allow need those features to operate as advertised. A whole new category of error messages would, in all likelihood, appear. hahaha
It doesn't matter if the end implementation is the same, and if the patent is valid. If two parties independently invent something and the first guy patented it, the second guy doesn't get to use his invention just because he made it without reverse engineering the first guy's.
Now a lot of software-related patents are complete bull spit (patenting the "shopping cart" or an obvious mathematical algorithm) and this may be one of them, so that's why I keep including a disclaimer in all my posts.
Yeah right.
So there are no Federal Courts in Seattle?
And is Seattle not very close to i4i’s offices in British Columbia, Canada, in addition to having Microsoft's massive headquarters with all their lawyers, and witnesses from the company there?
Did i4i go and get this legal team of theirs in Texas because they wanted to push the case in potent troll friendly Texas, or they have had these attorneys since the company was founded?
And why on earth would a company chose their legal team thousands of miles from where they operate their business anyways?
Are there no smart, powerful law firms in Seattle? They sure are not fooling me with this ridiculous story.
MS dug this hole and put their customers in this position. MS should be responsible for their error and the damages that their errors cause.
Gad...how I hate that.
The irony is in the name of the plaintif is i4i - (an) eye for (an) eye, $290M for theft.
This case is a textbook example of why you should not be able to patent software.
Copyright it, yes.
Patent the manipulation of electronic signals, no.
I use OpenOffice.. runs on Windows, Linux, Mac. Works fine for me.
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