I was perusing slashdot last night and came across an interesting bit of news those of you following my post might want to see. Here is a link to the actual article: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5BL3FV20091222?type=technologyNews
Quick summary: MS uses a proprietary XML reading technology to parse .docx, .xml, etc type documents..the only problem…it’s not theirs. Ooops. Someone made a little mistake at MS and they are using a patented xml parsing process owned by i4i (a 30 person software firm, not a patent troll). The courts have now ruled, twice, that MS is infringing on i4i’s patent and must now stop selling Word/Office on Jan 11, and must pay some $240M in fees to i4i.
I say, it is about time some legitimate little guy actually was able to withstand the legal juggernaut that is MS, as MS is constantly doing this sort of thing. Now only if the copyright office would catch up to the patent office and tag MS and Google for the constant use of making available copyrighted works directly in their search engine results without providing compensation to the creators.
So what do you think, will MS really stop selling Office/Word, just pay more fines, or what?