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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."
While reading, I kept hearing the song "For the love of money" from the '70s in my head. The one from the O'Jays that goes "money,money,money,money, mooo...neeey" ;-)
Well; "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."
It sure helps having money to settle court cases in your favor, doesn't it ?
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
the sealed bond is just the publicly available document and the rest is just stuffed with $100 bills.
Even if this is unquestionably a patent violation, the Supreme Court has already held, in eBay Inc. v. MercExchange, L.L.C. (2006), that an injunction prohibiting sale of the infringing product is not necessarily the appropriate remedy in all cases. Rather, the traditional four factors for issuing an injunction must be balanced: 1) that the injury is irreparable; 2) that there are inadequate alternate remedies to compensate for the injury; 3) that the balance of hardships favors the plaintiff; and 4) that an injunction does not harm the public interest. Microsoft has an least a plausible argument that they are not satisfied in this case, and that alternate remedies (perhaps money damages) would be better than an injunction against sale, even if indeed Word is infringing.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
In this case it appears that the courts will not have the last word.
I wonder if the request was delivered as a Word document.
Nope. MS got what it deserved.
They did not question patent's validity in fear that it might undermine their portfolio. So let them suffer.
Perhaps in the sealed document they'll point to Amazon's handling of the 1984 e-book, and offer to put a remote kill switch into any shipped copies of Word. If they ultimately lose the i4i infringement case, then - POOF - no problem!
#DeleteChrome
They argued both that the patent was invalid and that they didn't infringe on it, in any case. They lost on both points, but they certainly made the argument.
What was filed under seal:
Dear Judge, The world will end if we can't continue shipping Word.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
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.
Other than "they are big", do you have a reason for that? How about frequent travelers? People with second homes in other countries?
Is there any good reason that being large and/or important should exempt you from the usual procedures of justice?
This isn't a "state-level" judge, its a federal judge.
The Constitution of the United States lays out the specific kinds of cases in which the Supreme Court has original jurisdiction, other than that, all federal judicial power rests initially in lower trial courts, with the Supreme Court only hearing appeals (and, for the most part, not even direct appeals.)
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.
Hi, uninformed person here. If they stole code line for line, why is this a patent case and not a copyright infringement case?
"'Yrch!' said Legolas, falling into his own tongue."
A patent troll is a company that offers no products, but files lawsuits based on patents they own. A patent troll microsoft is not. Microsoft has their fair share of crappy patents, but they have never to my knowledge used patents directly against OSS. They've made threats, but anyone can make threats.
As far as I'm concerned, whoever wins in the end, all that's been demonstrated is how absurd software patents are.
It wouldn't be unreasonable to scale up the time taken for double checking facts in cases where so many people are going to be affected. The more significant the conse... oh sod it, I'll quote: "with great power comes great responsibility"
The current location of your daughter is in the attached file. Unfortunately for you, this file can only be read by the latest software version of Word we're commercially releasing next week.
--
File attached: clownfart.wdoc
I am the richest astronaut ever to win the superbowl.
Wrong. True, a traditional patent troll is one that makes no real products. However, MS's activity against Linux can certainly be seen as "trollish", because of their vague threats meant to stir up FUD. At least the traditional patent trolls have the decency to state which patents are being violated, even if they're BS patents.
So, unless you can come up with a better term for their despicable behavior, I'll continue to use the term "troll" for MS.
Except, there are no patent trolls in this case. i4i ships and sells an actual product, the patented code for which Microsoft actually stole after working with them.
citation needed. All I see here is a patent case, which has nothing to do with copyright infringement which you accuse MS of.
Besides, any company stupid enough to work with MS and not expect to be ripped off deserves to be ripped off. They should even make a special law granting MS the right to do that, since they've done it so many times in the past yet these stupid companies keep trusting MS to not do it again.
In general, the idea behind injunctions is to minimize irrepairable harm. If this injunction stands and Microsoft then wins the case that would result in what amounts of major irrepairable harm to Microsoft given the large amount of software they would need to sell in the meantime with reduced functionality. However, allowing Microsoft to continue to sell the software will have less of an impact on the company suing since there are already so many copies of Word out there.
I hate to be on Microsoft's side but they are right on this one. Maybe if they fight off enough patent trolls they will join in efforts to reform patents out of self preservation.
The problem is that they themselves patent just about everything under the sun.
Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!
Except that the plaintiffs are not patent trolls and have a real and verifiable grievance.
Except, people's opposition to patents is not restricted to just the case of patent trolls (although they are one demonstration of the problem). Some people have the radical notion that perhaps an idea can't be owned by one person. And whilst there may be some argument for some kinds of patents, software patents are a particular evil, that I do not believe we should have (and in my country, the UK, we don't have them).
Microsoft have an actual product too. If they really "stole" it from them (you probably meant to say "copied"), then why not sue them for copyright infringement?
Why should a state judge not be able to rule that a company selling a product in his jurisdiction is illegal? Just like this federal judge ruled selling a product in his jurisdiction is illegal.
By the way, global would be outside the jurisdiction of the US supreme court anyway.
So now that it's Microsoft, software patents are okay, just so long as the company suing are not "trolls"?
I would be willing to bet that the same thing will happen that happened when they lost the CP/M case. They paid the 'injured' off, continued to ship product during the entire episode ( in that case, decades ), made far more then the pay off was and it was all swept under the carpet, chalking it up to 'cost of doing business'.
Normal operating procedures for a monopoly.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
You built this mess of "software patents" and it's way past time that it started to bite you in the ass. "Motion Denied" (and also suck-it!)
That's a bit too narrow.
Justice Bradley stated, in 1882
Those "speculative schemers" are patent trolls. It doesn't matter whether they actually use each "shadow of a shade of an idea" in a product of their own; they're patent trolls even if they make their own product, as long as they try to prevent others from using those non-novel or obvious ideas.
By that definition, i4i is a patent troll, and Microsoft has, in other instances, acted as a patent troll.
Not making a product is neither necessary nor sufficient for patent-trollism. An organization which mainly does research might legitimately obtain a patent without any intent of developing it themselves. And an organization which makes a real product might engage in patent-trolling to put competitors out of business, or to obtain a revenue stream when their own product has failed.
I don't disagree - but if having actual products doesn't stop one being a patent troll, you should put this point to the people here claiming that i4i can't possibly be patent trolls.
The system is so broken that they'd be sued by every small-time squatter who had the gumption to slip an idea through the patent office. It's cheaper to just register everything you can think of and then out-lawyer your competition. Microsoft ain't the only ones doing it either.
And what's that exactly? That they store documents in a single XML file? That's kinda the point of XML, and indeed of most of the SGML derivatives. The concept has been around for decades. What they have is a product based off of a rather old idea, and then Microsoft implemented that rather old idea itself, thus rendering their product worthless. That's not an argument for them getting some sort of monetary reparations, it's an argument for companies not basing their revenue stream on decades-old concepts that probably are older than most of their software engineers.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Eventually big corporations will lobby the governments for some real patent reform. Once the patent system makes it impossible for businesses to turn a profit something will have to give. Hopefully when the reform comes it will be done in a way that allows for a level playing field for all. I can't think of too many ways of reform that would make things worse while giving businesses a way out of the patent troll fiasco. Any way out for them is, I believe, going to benefit everyone.
There are lots of possible solutions I can see. reduce the duration of patents. increase the filing cost(and require the increases costs provide some valuable service to the patent holder). have penalties for failed infringements(this is basically impossible because you would just file a claim in a court that favors you). Probably many more that are even better that I didn't even consider (I'm just a layperson).
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
This is all getting pretty pedantic, but maybe we just need a whole new term for MS's behavior, since I can't think of any other instance where a company went around bad-mouthing its competitors, claiming it has patents which they infringe, but refusing to disclose what those patents may be, just to get people to stop using the competitors' products.
Or, if we wanted to use a more lax definition of "troll", we could say it's anyone attempting to use the patent system (with its lax to non-existent safeguards against abuse) to profit in ways that don't involve direct competition. A normal company using patents does so to protect products it actually makes and sells, and only moves to litigation when a competitor violates one of those patents in its own competing product, such as with someone selling a knock-off of a patented technology. Anything other than this seems like "trollish" behavior to me, amounting to abuse of the patent system. Under this definition, i4i sounds like a troll since I don't see any "i4i" word processors on the market.
Defensive patents...
actually if they did steal the code line-for-line it would be both a patent and copyright infringement case.
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.
Why on Earth does a way seal court documents even exist?
> So now that it's Microsoft, software patents are okay, just so long as the company suing are not "trolls"?
No, they're not okay. But it's hard to see how Microsoft isn't getting its just deserts.
Perhaps Microsoft should rethink its amicus brief in Bilski and start arguing that these sorts of patents should be invalid? There's at least a credible claim that Bilski could be used to invalidate this patent. And it's pretty clear, ironically, that Microsoft's amicus brief is arguing that Bilski should NOT be held to do that (at least, not in general).
Basically, what I'm trying to say is, as Nelson would put it, "Ha ha!"
If they'd argued that these patents should not be allowed, they would not be in this position. Of course, they could also avoid gobbling up partner's products, too, but they're the 800 lbs gorilla. If you have a banana and they want it, they're going to take it from you, laws be damned. You shouldn't do business with them and be ignorant of that fact, because it has nothing to do with patents, it's just how they operate.
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'.
This is a useless message to test the Oligarchy Control System. Please hide under the nearest desk to avoid falling chairs from the planet Uranus.
If this had been an actual emergency, M$ wouldn't have been assfucking millions of people for so many years.
This concludes this test of the emergency ass-fuck avoidance system.
Microsoft wants to *continue* selling one of its biggest products?
I'm shocked, I tell you, shocked.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
No, its okay because Microsoft uses patents as weapons and not just defensively, and so they are now getting what they deserve. See the TomTom case for example.
I'd compare MS's pilfering of i4i's product (which should never have been patented in the first place) to a pirate's pilfering of RIAA soundtracks (which enjoy far too draconian protection under copyright law).
"Besides, any company stupid enough to work with MS and not expect to be ripped off deserves to be ripped off." ?????? Are you back on the pipe?
That sinking feeling deep in your gut when you KNOW you screwed up bad summed up with: {head desk} {head desk}
If you actually look over the patent being sued over, US Patent 5,787,449, you'll notice a major similarity to Microsoft's patent on LFNs. Specifically, US Patent 5,787,449 patents the idea of keeping document formating and content separate--ie, to have two separate streams of information instead of one. A simple idea for an implimentation, then, would be to have a plain .txt file and a separate tag+index file and a program that loads the two together, patches the .txt file in memory, and treats the result as an XML file.
In a similar vein, up until Windows 95, there were various schemes to overcome the 8.3 limitation of DOS filenames. Most used the idea of keeping a separate file (descript.ion for example) containing a short and long filename and merging them in memory with the directory listing for long filename supporting programs. Microsoft decided to do something similar, except they stored the long file names directly within the directory listing--ie, the took two separate streams of information and made them one.
What was my point? Merely that the idea of spliting or joining streams of related information is not at all a novel idea, inherently, although people may come up with more or less clever implementations to accomplish the goal. To that end, I'd be more than happy to support Microsoft in its efforts to stop i4i's patent, presuming of course that they too would stop suing companies like TomTom over similar patents they hold.
Eurohacker European paranoia, gun rights, and h
Except that the plaintiffs are not patent trolls and have a real and verifiable grievance.
What is a patent troll?
I only ask you because you seem to not be using it as English does, yet it appears to be two English words put together.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_troll
Patent troll is a pejorative term used for a person or company that enforces its patents against one or more alleged infringers in a manner considered unduly aggressive or opportunistic, often with no intention to manufacture or market the patented invention.
Alleged infringers. We have none of those here. The court ruled Microsoft infringes. No more alleged.
unduly aggressive. None of that here. Hell, almost by definition it is not possible to be very aggressive towards a company the size of Microsoft. But that aside, what exactly is aggressive here? Due process is not aggressive.
Often with no intention. Not that this is even required at all, but none of that here. Not only do they have intention to manufacture their invention, they are actually doing it!
So yea, your version does not mean what the rest of us know it as. What does patent troll mean to you again?
If you know a contractor that's been arrested many, many times for ripping off his clients, stealing their stuff from their homes when he's entrusted to do jobs in them, etc., has been in the news for that, and has even ripped off your next-door neighbor, would you hire that contractor to work in your home? If you did, I would call you stupid, and I actually would say that you deserved to be ripped off for your stupidity.
It's the same thing with MS. Every company that works with them is burned.
Tom Tom should not have threatened Microsoft first they approached Microsoft looking for a payoff then got burned instead of the payoff they where looking for. "TomTom is seeking in its current lawsuit "triple damages for willful infringement" on Microsoft's part because Microsoft had been notified of TomTom's claims and had not come forward with acceptable licensing terms."
I wonder what the reason for this is and how frequently is this request granted.
Any way, that's at least the second thing I remember this summer (the first being the buy now at 60% off deal on the various Windows 7s) that suggests Microsoft has a cash flow issue at the moment.
Regarding the judgment, remember 90 million was tacked on by the judge to make Microsoft pay for its lawyers' behavior.
im4aired its JESUS UP THE
We shouldn't be modding these down, we should be modding them up. Yes, they're annoying and nonsensical (or even offensive) - but it's fairly obvious that these types of comments are computer-generated, so it becomes obvious that someone/something is breaking the captcha - modding these comments down just helps them hide the fact that they can spam slashdot any time they want to. How many of us browse at -1?
Mod these comments +1, Interesting, and maybe it will attract someone's attention that slashdot is more broken than they think.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
"Why on Earth does a way seal court documents even exist?"
To protect trade secrets under dispute, or to protect the identities of minors. Those are the two reasons that spring directly to mind. I'm sure there are others.
i4i created and sold a product that M$ stole.
If they did that, i4i would have sued them for copyright infringement, not over patents. They did not 'steal' the product, they made their own product from scratch that did something similar
Are you totally clueless? Copyright only protects direct cut-n-paste ripoffs of source code, which only stupid, mediocre programmers resort to. There are hundreds of ways to implement an idea. Sometimes, the code is not that valuable -- any competent programmer can implement it. But the idea behind that code is valuable and needs to be protected by a patent.
Unless/until Microsoft has revealed the code, i4i cannot determine that it's copied line by line, rather than reverse engineered and re-implemented under clean room conditions.
Patent claims can be more powerful. If it were just copyright, Microsoft could remove the offending code and use aforementioned reverse-engineering techniques to evade copyright claims.
I know they didn't copy it, or steal it, I was saying that they didn't, what I wrote was that IF they DID 'steal' i4i's product, it would be a copyright infringement, not patent. Re-read the conversation if necessary.
But the idea behind that code is valuable and needs to be protected by a patent.
So what your saying is, that the first person to come up with sin/cos/tan should have patented it and not let the world use the idea? Mathematics are except from patents for a reason, they are ideas, and not implementations of ideas
You seem to think that ideas (not a novel implementation of an idea) should be protected by patents, I would hate to think what the world of science and academia would be like if your world view was true, I imagine something like the middle ages.
I thought it was $240 mil. Is that a typo or have they been fined again?
By that definition, i4i is a patent troll
Except for that whole "without contributing anything to the real advancement of the arts" part.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
i4i created and sold a product that M$ stole.
Stealing a product, which is what he was referring to, is closer to copyright infringement than patent infringement. But MS didn't steal a product, they stole the idea. Kind of funny seeing MS getting cut by that.
If they argued the right way on invalidity (in re Bilski...) they would have probably won the case. But the full-court press on invalidity would have hindered their future positioning on other legal fronts forevermore.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
I hope not. Microsoft need to actually win this and get that patent invalidated. Or else who will i4i shake down next? OpenOffice? Notepad++? It's a bad patent.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
10101001 10101001 wrote as part of a post:
In a related note, this sounds similar to the way that Profession Write used to store its document information. It would automatically create an extra file in the directory that contained document information on all of the Professional Write documents in the directory, including the long document name.
Returning to the topic of the article, I request a clarification. I've read the original article in the original thread and I'm unsure of exactly the issue is. From that I read, it seems like the issue isn't that the document is saved in many pieces (which the OpenDocument format does). Rather, it seems like the issue is that MS Word can create custom made XML tags on its own and that is what the issue is. If that is the case, would this have an affect on the OpenDocument format? Thanks in advance for the clarification.
After reading the verdict its pretty clear that Microsoft knew about this patent and i4i long before they implemented custom XML. Its probable that they did infact learn about custom XML through i4is products and patents. Internal mails was shown where Microsoft did mention i4i and even their patent numbers.
It looks as if Microsofts counsels has done pretty much anything possible to defend themselves but the case is so darn clearcut that they just cant win. The problem for Microsoft is that Office Open XML has now become i4is bitch while ODF is wholly in the clear and unencumbered by i4i patents (according to i4i). Since ECMA-376 contains the i4i patented technology in the standard its worthless to anyone in the US.
HTTP/1.1 400
Which they have already used to threaten open source projects. Not terribly defensive.
Im not so sure about that. If i4i is smart they will not under any circumstanses sell the patent to Microsoft. Demand a limited time license thats renegotiated periodically.
The thing is, i4i has ECMA Office Open XML by the balls. If i4i has the patent the standard is utterly useless for Microsoft. They must have it at any cost so the negotiating power lies at i4i. Not even Chuck Norris can help Microsoft on this.
HTTP/1.1 400
As usual TFS doesn't give enough information. Perhaps reading slashdot will free you from this troublesome burden of thinking MS is in the right:
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1339159&cid=29101019
hit the link in that post for external-to-slashdot details.
Or else who will i4i shake down next? OpenOffice? ...
Err... wake up.
As noted in several comments, i4i themselves have stated that Openoffice/ODF are *not* affected by this patent.
"Dear Judge,
I know you have issued a judgment against me saying I'm not allowed to beat my wife. I have full intent to comply with the law. However if I stop beating my wife I will... ummm... I will... suffer significant psychological damage. That's it! Psychological damage. So I would like to file this motion saying that, while another judge double-checks your homework, I should be allowed to continue beating my wife. Respectfully yours,
Microsoft"
Yeah. I'm sure that would go well.
I hadn't known there were so many idiots in the world until I started using the Internet -Stanislaw Lem
I'm confused by your post.
From what I've gathered, i4i has tech that MS didn't understand so MS asked i4i about it. Then MS turns around and implements i4i's ideas in Word. That is not an idea that occurred "naturally and spontaneously" to MS in the course of its work.
When the 800lb software gorilla has to ask the little guy how the tech works, it's hard to believe the idea is simply "non-novel or obvious."
>> Except, there are no patent trolls in this case. i4i ships and sells an actual product, the patented code for which Microsoft actually stole after working with them.
The code, or the algorithm?
-- I was raised on the command line, bitch
Why, Mr. Cannata,, I thought it was quite self-explanatory.
You would still use that contractor if they promised to build a mansion for the same price as a shack and you knew they were the only ones that could do so.
You misunderstood the 8.3 patent. Storing all the information in a different file (as Profession Write does) is the "obvious" and thus unpatentable way of doing it. (also "obvious" is the idea of using more than 8.3 letters in a filename at all).
The novel part of the M$ scheme is to not use a separate file but to instead use extra hidden directory entries. This has the particular advantage that if an old system deletes all the files the directory really will look empty, rather than having an undeletable file of information. I think it is an innovation, in that every other known scheme used an extra file, and thus this M$ patent is not anywhere near as questionable as others.
That said, I have no idea why changing the 8.3 mangling could possibly work around the patent, which has been proposed, therefore I may not understand the patent and they may have somehow patented the wrong (and thus obvious) part. Name mangling I consider pretty obvious.
If they argued the right way on invalidity (in re Bilski...) they would have probably won the case. But the full-court press on invalidity would have hindered their future positioning on other legal fronts forevermore.
No, they wouldn't. You should actually go read Bilski and the i4i patent. Here's claim 1:
1. A computer system for the manipulation of the architecture and content of a document having a plurality of metacodes and content by producing a first map of metacodes and their addresses of use in association with mapped content; said system comprising:
metacode map distinct storage means;
means for providing a menu of metacodes to said metacode storage means;
and means for compiling said metacodes of the menu by locating, detecting and addressing the metacodes in the document to constitute the map and storing the map in the metacode storage means; and
means for resolving the content and the metacode map into the document.
Now, three things present themselves. First, Bilski was on method patents, not system claims. The Fed Circuit has held many times that a claim on a system is statutory, even if it contains functional steps - the claim is restricted to the physical system that performs the steps, not the mere method, and is statutory.
Second, Bilski cited State Street with approval, and State Street was about a system with "means for" limitations that again, restrict the functional limitations to being performed by a physical system.
Finally, even if you ignore the above and do a straight Bilski machine-or-transformation test, this appears to be a specific machine - it's a computer system configured with functions for creating and storing a metacode map. My computer isn't configured with those functions (mainly 'cause I don't use Word), so the claims apparently require a specific computer.
Anyways, Bilski's pretty useless at the moment, essentially a lame duck decision, since cert has been granted. SCOTUS doesn't do that unless they want to weigh in - could go narrower, could go broader, but it's not going to stand as is. So, wait until the next SCOTUS term. Things will get a bit more settled, though not in the way the Slashdot anti-patent crowd will like.
Didn't everybody say the Office Open XML was just a ploy so that MS could say they have an open format? If so, why would they "have to have it at any cost"? Sounds like a great way for MS to maintain closed standards while having a great excuse: "We came up with an open format but the courts wouldn't let us continue to use it".
> Except, people's opposition to patents is not restricted
> to just the case of patent trolls
Also keep in mind that large corporations deal heavily in the patent troll's big brother: the defensive patent.
Big corporations try to patent everything they can think of, not just for the good patents, but also on things they have no intention of using directly, but rather to block other companies that do want to do that.
In this way, companies block each other, thus forcing each other to agree to a patent exchange agreement.
One company sues another over a legitimate, if zwingy, patent. The other patents a ton of stuff surrounding that or another patent important to that company, thus almost landlocking from further development, so to speak.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Really? Cite a source that confirms your claim that Microsoft stole i4i's code line for line. Go ahead.
MS Word doesn't have to go away just to allow people to use OOo. Those who want to do it already.
As for buying software and support "from the people who actually develop it", I wasn't aware that somebody other than MS was claiming they developed Word. Even if MS ends up losing this case on appeal, this XML feature represents a tiny fraction of the code and functionality of the product.
They CAN continue to sell MS Office - so long as they remove support for customized-XML based documents. As most users still use the older binary file formats this will not be an issue for them.
Also, if Microsoft wants to continue to use XML based documents they can always correct its poor implementation of the ISO-approved Open Document file formats as these are based on the published XML standard (along with several other tried and proven standards) and have been confirmed as not infringing this patent.
[rolls eyes]
Oh yeah - Microsoft doesn't want to use a well documented file format that is already implemented in multiple office productivity suites as that would promote [shudder] "Interoperability" and we all know how keen (ie it isn't!) Microsoft is to have its software behaving nicely with the software of other developers.
Sorry, but that's how I feel on the matter, and that's the dominant behaviour that I can see demonstrated in Microsoft's track record stretching from as recently as it forcefully ramrodding a flawed >6000-page MS Office Open XML specification through a fast-tracked standardization process and as far back as MS-DOS... [blah blah blah]
I have to admit a bias given that I am opposed to all software patents due to my fundamental belief that mathematics and mathmatical algorithms cannot be patented and that software is entirely and only mathematics and algorithms.
Microsoft has used its giant collection of software patents to stifle innovation and competition and I see this as merely some other company's patent being used to stifle innovation and competition, but this time the target is Microsoft. Heh heh - I see it as a good example of corporate karma in action.
> If they stole code line for line, why is this a
> patent case and not a copyright infringement case?
Because they can potentially get more money from a patent infringement case, and because if they only sued for copyright infringement Microsoft could simply rewrite the infringing section of code to not include the infringing lines of code and then still be using Custom XML in violation of the patent in question.