Judge bans sales of Microsoft Word in the US
 

Just read this on DailyTech and was kinda shocked. A program that is used by millions is suddenly banned.

Read Here.

Greedy little Canadian company, i4i, is great at thinking of get rich quick schemes. Patents are indeed too broad, they need to have more specific details to them.

To ban Microsoft Word selling in the US that millions use daily in their office towers around the globe, at homes, at schools, etc. is ridiculous. I'm with Microsoft on this one.

If there is indeed a trail of emails showing that Microsoft knew they were infringing patents and went ahead anyway then I'm with i4i. It's time someone took on Microsofts arrogance.

Sorry, didn't read that one.

Conversely, its time that small companies stop writing these broad patents waiting only for another company to do it better and then sue them. Intellctual property is respectable, but there are limits. In the technology world, it is silly to get a patent like this and then sit on it for 10 years.

Look, MS has done some crappy things, and probably (because of the ultra-broad nature of it) violated this patent. But really, there is a much deeper problem here, and it isn't all on MS...

I agree, but surely the patent lawyers should veto such broad patents?

I completely agree - the patent office needs to stop giving these broad patents. And i think there should be some way for companies to petition to have access to these dead patents (lets face it, a tech patent made in 1998 and never used may as well be called dead)...

Granting patents for software is just so bad idea... [thumbdown]

QFT.[yes]

I patented using a thing to move a thing to interact with things. I should sue everyone. [cursing]

And I'm going to sue you for infringing upon my patent for "moving".

Patent system is so hosed up. Generalized patents should NOT be allowed.

I don't really get it. Maybe I don't know much about patents but the thing is 21 pages long it doesn't seem that general or vague to me and It's clear that i4i created an application/add on for Word which handled XML documents. So this isn't some dead patent they just sat on for 10 years...

"i4i Announces x4o
5/6/2003

i4i announced the release of x4o. x4o is a major upgrade to i4i's S4/TEXT - XML in Word product. x4o is a complete XML content authoring solution for Microsoft Word. It includes two modules: x4o Designer- an XML template design tool that allows the user to develop their own DTDs, formatting templates and template text in the familiar Microsoft Word interface, and x4o Author- XML authoring in Word with an optional WebDAV connector. x4o is available now for Word 97, Word 2000, and Word XP. x4o runs on Windows 98, NT 4.0, Windows 2000, and Windows XP. x4o is multi-lingual. There are user and developer version available."

- http://gilbane.com/content_managemen...ment_news.html

They created a product, they patented it, they made it into an add on for Word and in Office 2007 Microsoft took that patented system and integrated it directly into their applications thus destroying the market for the patented product what am I not getting here?

I don't feel too much pity for Microsoft. They've flashed their patent portfolio around when it suited them before.