Court: Microsoft violated patent; can't sell Word

Anyone know the specifics on what patent violation entails?

This is good. We need more of these things to happen so that we can get some power behind the anti-software-patent lobby. Software patents have to become too dangerous to keep around, and that happens by things like this; right now, Microsoft and others use patents to lord over Linux and make vague threats about litigation. This is an important part of Microsoft's strategy, so software patents are important to them. But if more awesome things like making it illegal to sell Word and therefore Office happen, it'll be too dangerous to keep software patents around, MS will call up their cronies in Congress, and software patents will be out of commission in a year or less.

I hope all the patent trolls of the world open the floodgates on Microsoft, Apple, and the other behemoths in the computer industry so that we can finally put the issue to rest.

In this particular instance it was literal infringement meaning Microsoft literally copied i4i's patented technology.

First of all, i4i is not a patent troll, they are a document management company that actively deploys the technology on which they have a patent. One notable case of such is that they used it to overhaul the USPTO's own internal database.

Microsoft came to i4i and contracted them to help them move Word over to an XML format. They then tried to strong arm i4i into some licensing agreement which they did not accept so Microsoft just decided to willfully infringe. This means they decided they would just ignore the patent and use i4i's patented technology anyway without paying them. Essentially, they stole i4i's work when they refused to sell on Microsoft's terms.

More of the backstory in this article: http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2009/09/i4i-says-micro...

They were sued by a company that uses Clippy in their screenshot?!? http://www.i4i.com/x4o.htm