Alan Hargreaves' Weblog

The ramblings of an Australian SaND TSC* Principal Field Technologist

* Solaris and Network Domain Technology Support Centre - The group I work for

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pageicon Wednesday Aug 12, 2009

Microsoft forced to stop selling Word over an XML Patent?

I just saw on Cnet an article titled Judge orders Microsoft to stop selling Word. OK it's Microsoft you may say. I'm more concerned over the guts of this one. The lead paragraph is:

Judge Leonard Davis of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas issued a permanent injunction that "prohibits Microsoft from selling or importing to the United States any Microsoft Word products that have the capability of opening .XML, .DOCX or DOCM files (XML files) containing custom XML," according to a statement released by attorneys for the plantiff, i4i.

So if patent 5,787,449 has been used to stop Microsoft from selling such products, what (if anything) does it bode for things like OpenOffice.org?

Posted at 05:35PM Aug 12, 2009 by Alan Hargreaves in General  |  Comments[2]