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(CIOZone) By Mel Duvall
Microsoft has been ordered to stop selling its popular Word product by a Texas court. The software giant has also been told to pay a small Canadian software firm $290 million in damages for patent infringement.
The surprising ruling is the result of a suit filed in 2007 by Toronto-based i4i, which claimed that Microsoft knowingly infringed on one of its patents in its word processing application and through its Vista operating system. A jury issued a verdict in favor of i4i in May, and the final judgment was delivered Tuesday by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas.
Judge Leonard Davis has issued an injunction against Microsoft forbidding it from selling its Word 2003, Word 2007 and Word for Mac 2008 in the U.S. The injunction does not take effect until Oct. 10.
In a statement, Microsoft spokesman Kevin Kutz said the company is disappointed in the ruling and will appeal the verdict.
At the heart of the dispute is Microsoft's alleged use of "custom XML." XML is the abbreviation for eXtensible Markup Language, a well used markup language protocol.
According to a statement released by lawyers for i4i, the patent covered a technology which removed the need for "individual, manually embedded command codes to control text formatting in electronic documents." According to the firm, McKool Smith and Tyler, Judge Davis' ruling covers the following:
- As stated in the original jury verdict from May 20, Microsoft must pay i4i $200 million in damages.
- In addition, i4i has been awarded $40 million for willful infringement on the i4i patent.
- Microsoft must also pay $37 million in prejudgement interest as well as $21,102 per day for interest until a final judgment is reached in the case.
- Microsoft must pay $141,060 per day until the date of final judgment for post-verdict damages.
i4i bills itself as an expert in the area of offering solutions to XML authoring in Word. Its customer base is heavily weighted to the life sciences sector, where companies use its products to author, verify, submit and manage product labeling requirements to Federal Drug Administration requirements. Clients like drugmakers Amgen, Merck & Co. and Bayer use the software to ensure customers get accurate and the most up-to-date information on their medicine labels.
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