The 280million might be pocket money for MS (although i don't think they share that view), but having to take Word (and thus probably also suites like Office) off the market in teh US is a major blow i think.
True, but it certainly opens the door by setting a precedence. It will be interesting to see the other companies stepping forward with similar suits against MS. I'm sure there are a ton of them
I4i filed a patent in 1998 that outlined a means for "manipulating the architecture and the content of a document separately from each other" invoking XML as a means allowing users to format text documents.
Right... so you can patent something you can do with XML? XML isn't something this company created in the first place...
Right... so you can patent something you can do with XML? XML isn't something this company created in the first place...
In any case, MS could just buy this company.
Yeah, I don't think people understand the ramifications of this ruling. OpenOffice uses similar routines and would be subject to the same patent infringement. However OpenOffice doesn't have $290 million to pay fines and court fees. There goes competition.
Not only that but hundreds of websites use XML for document and information exchange, including all of yours. The lawsuit states that Microsoft uses custom XML in their documents. vBulletin uses custom XML to exchange styles, addon products and languages. XML is supposed to be an open standard and not fettered with patents and restrictions. The implications of this go far behind Microsoft's pocketbook.
08-13-2009, 03:58 AM
Microsoft are in deep poop again.....
Now, let me think 
Linear Mode
