Microsoft and i4i

[Mitchell314]

According to PR Newswire, a judge has ordered MS to stop selling Word as it is now over a patent dispute from some company called i4i over something about XML documents. I say "as it is now," because I think it's about a specific set of capabilities in Word, not Word itself. But still, doesn't this seem to be a case of patent trolling on i4i's part? Come on, this is XML we're talking about, not some super-secret ultra-compressed holographic movie file formatting we're talking about.

Your thoughts?

 

[GreNME]

I'm reminded of a comment by Malcom X regarding chickens and coming home for the purpose of roosting.

Honestly, I don't know anything about this particular case, but Microsoft has had a history of bad behavior, mostly dating back to the 1990's and prior, some of which consisted of patent trolling and functionality swiping in its own right. In the end I hope that whichever is the more correct party in the argument succeeds, but I have neither surprise nor sympathy for Microsoft on this kind of case. They regularly deal with a lot of attempts at lawsuits against their company (some downright frivolous), but it's often because the company has either operated in bad faith (in the past) or they skirt the very edges of similarity to smaller, more specialized software out there in Microsoft's software suites.

On the other hand, Microsoft has seemed to get better in the behavior department over the last four or five years, so maybe this was some kind of honest mix-up or a mistaken lawsuit. Without having more details I can't really opine much beyond what I know of the history of lawsuits and Microsoft.

 

[ddt]

According to PR Newswire, a judge has ordered MS to stop selling Word as it is now over a patent dispute from some company called i4i over something about XML documents. I say "as it is now," because I think it's about a specific set of capabilities in Word, not Word itself. But still, doesn't this seem to be a case of patent trolling on i4i's part? Come on, this is XML we're talking about, not some super-secret ultra-compressed holographic movie file formatting we're talking about.

This patent dispute seems to have to do with a specific feature in Word to use custom XML formats, and then specifically with the way these are stored. The company i4i has devised a way of storing XML documents where the raw text is stored separately from the XML markup, thereby making it easier to have another markup for the same text simultaneous. And, as far as I've read, they're actually using that technology themselves in their own products, so they're not patent trolls.

Microsoft has indeed been a target for many patent disputes, and often indeed unfairly by patent trolls who only wrote up some nice idea without actually implementing it themselves or marketing it; or who wrote up an idea that really is straightforward and could have been thought up by anyone in the industry. I'm not passing my judgement (yet) on how smart i4i's patent is.

Some references:

slashdot article
computer world article

From the latter, page 2:

"I4i claims it presented internal e-mails within Microsoft where [employees] said that they would go ahead with the custom XML feature, even as they acknowledged the i4i patent," said Negrin. "And i4i maintains it even tried to pitch their technology to Microsoft, but Microsoft said 'thanks, but no thanks.'"

Doesn't sound too smart.

 

[Mitchell314]

This patent dispute seems to have to do with a specific feature in Word to use custom XML formats, and then specifically with the way these are stored. The company i4i has devised a way of storing XML documents where the raw text is stored separately from the XML markup, thereby making it easier to have another markup for the same text simultaneous. And, as far as I've read, they're actually using that technology themselves in their own products, so they're not patent trolls. <snip>

From what I know, file formats are not patentable, although algorithms and whatnot that make them could be. It just seems to be too generic of a thing to patent.

<snip>
slashdot article
computer world article

From the latter, page 2:


Doesn't sound too smart.

This is Microsoft we're talking about, after all.

 

[ddt]

From what I know, file formats are not patentable, although algorithms and whatnot that make them could be. It just seems to be too generic of a thing to patent.

A good point. But the GIF, MP3, OOXML file formats all suffer from patent protection on the way to produce a file in that format.

Let's look at the patent itself:

A system and method for the separate manipulation of the architecture and content of a document, particularly for data representation and transformations. The system, for use by computer software developers, removes dependency on document encoding technology. A map of metacodes found in the document is produced and provided and stored separately from the document. The map indicates the location and addresses of metacodes in the document. The system allows of multiple views of the same content, the ability to work solely on structure and solely on content, storage efficiency of multiple versions and efficiency of operation.

So they basically patented the idea of manipulating content and structure separately. Swell.

This is Microsoft we're talking about, after all.

I didn't want to make snarky comments about Microsoft, but yes, they've been caught pants-down in such a way before.

 

[Corsair 115]

As i4i is a Canadian company, the court rulings got some news coverage here.

The original decision came down back in May, where it was ruled that Microsoft had "wilfully infringed" on i4i's patent, and ordered Microsoft to pay the equivalent of $224 million Cdn.

Then, on August 12th, the original ruling was upheld, and the judge slapped an injunction on Microsoft preventing it from selling its Word software. Microsoft is appealing that decision. The court date for the appeal is in late September.

CBC News articles:

Microsoft must pay Toronto software firm $224M in patent suit
Microsoft barred from selling Word in U.S.