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"Easy Work-Around" For Microsoft Word's Legal Woes

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the legal-hokey-pokey-is-what-it's-all-about dept.

CWmike writes "Microsoft can likely use an 'easy technical work-around' to sidestep a recent injunction by a Texas federal judge that bars the company from selling Word, a patent attorney said today. 'The injunction doesn't apply to existing product that has already been sold,' said Barry Negrin, a partner with the New York firm Pryor Cashman LLP who has practiced patent and trademark law for 17 years. 'Headlines that say Microsoft can't sell Word are not really true,' said Negrin, pointing out that the injunction granted by US District Court Judge Leonard Davis on Tuesday only prohibits Microsoft from selling Word as it exists now after Oct. 10. 'All Microsoft has to do is disable the custom XML feature, which should be pretty easy to do, then give that a different SKU number from what's been sold so it's easy to distinguish the two versions.'"

2 of 172 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Good luck with that... by FudRucker · · Score: 0, Troll

    sure, why not, i dont care one way or the other, i use openoffice on linux anyway, so this lawsuit against microsoft office xml does not mean anything to me...

    --
    Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
  2. Re:Easy Solution by tomhudson · · Score: 1, Troll

    Does ODF use XML format? Because if it does, it's also technically in trouble just as much as the DOCX format is for Word.

    ...

    I would suggest we all hope for Microsoft's lawyers to prevail in this case. It will be a victory for all of us, even if you dislike Microsoft and think they should get their comeuppance. Please save your schadenfreude for another case.

    Nice shilling - you don't get out much, do you? This has NOTHING to do with xml. i4i made an add-in that Microsoft refused to license for $20 million, copied the functionality and called it "custom xml" (which is another way of saying it's NOT part of the xml standard) and now has to pay 10 times as much for WILLFULLY infringing.

    You want us to hope Microsoft gets a pass for that? You work there or something?

    If Microsoft had stuck to the standard rather than trying another "embrace, extend, extinguish", they wouldn't be in this boat right now. Then again, it's only by bringing out incompatible "features" such as "custom xml" (which, since it doesn't conform to the standard for xml, is really a misnomer), that Microsoft can keep people locked in.