Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Files "Emergency Motion" To Ship Word
adeelarshad82 writes "Several days after a judge ordered Microsoft to halt sales of Word and handed down $290M in fines, the software giant has moved to stop the ban. On Friday Microsoft filed an emergency motion to stop the judgment and waive the bond requirement, according to court filings. The actual document was filed under seal, so the full contents of the request have not yet been made public."
You're wrong, and overmoderated.
There is no patent troll in this case.
i4i is an actual company, that sells actual products. They worked with Microsoft, and Microsoft, line for line, stole their code. i4i subsequently sued them, and won.
There is no patent troll in this case.
Without patents, the rich get richer and the poor, small software company ALWAYS LOSES.
This is a rare case where the smaller company may benefit. In most cases, the larger company will just point out the numerous patents of theirs that you're infringing, and then tell you how the case will be settled. In more cases still, the new company has no chance of patenting anything, so they're unable to enter the market, or risk being sued, because of the difficulties of bringing a product to market without stepping on every software algorithm and other idea that's already been patented by someone.
And I still don't understand taking their side just because they're smaller. Bad laws are bad laws. When that random company threatened to sue every ISP on the planet because they had a hyperlink patent, was everyone rooting for the little guy then?
I'm sure it's a detailed synopsis as to how the US patent system is utterly broken, how it allows the most obvious ideas, and even ideas with a long history of prior art, to be patented. It probably goes into great detail as to how this is severely damaging both the US and global software industries, and how it burdens large companies with having to maintain vast portfolios to defend against just such attacks, and raises prices and creates uncertainty due to licensing costs.
Of course, it's sealed, because while Microsoft doesn't want to be the victim of this moronic and corrupt system, it also doesn't want to preclude being a potential beneficiary either.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Some people have the radical notion that perhaps an idea can't be owned by one person.
The patent system was not made for people to own ideas, it was made for people to own IMPLEMENTATIONS of ideas, this is where patents tend to fall flat on their ass with software. With every man and his dog patenting 'the ability to do x'.
Microsoft already lost the case, they were already ordered to pay $200 million which they have so far refused to do.
Normally, once the court finds you liable and orders you to pay, you have to actually do what they ordered you to do, or face sanctions and additional injunctions, like they have.
MS has only themselves to blame, they should have paid the $200 million to the court.