Time for Microsoft to pay the piper for use of i4i patent in Office 2007

From ComputerWorld – Microsoft lost its appeal to the US Court of Appeals in its patent battle with tiny software company i4i. A lower court awarded i4i $240 million for patent infringement against Microsoft. They further ordered Microsoft to stop selling Office 2007 until they removed the technology.

i4i is a Canadian software company that created technology to store Office documents as XML files. The court heard how Microsoft saw the technology but refused to license it from i4i.  Emails and other internal documents produced in the trial revealed how Microsoft employees and management willfully stole the technology from i4i. They intended to use it without compensation.

Microsoft can appeal to the Supreme Court but their chances of success get less and less. Microsoft has also had to recently admit they were using open source software without attribution. The blows to Microsoft’ public relations come on the heals of US and EU rulings and settlements that Microsoft acted in a predatory manner in the market.