Beta version of Word and Office suite 2010 banned

26th December, 2009 by adina
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Microsoft has lost its appeal against an infringement verdict of $290 million that states Microsoft should remove the Office suite and Word from the market. The verdict was upheld by the Court of Appeals of the United States. It states that XML code used in Word 2003 and 2007 violates patents developed by i4i for XML plugins. All sales of infringing copies of Word should be banned as of January 11th if no changes are made by Microsoft.

It is not known yet if Microsoft could make simple changes as the DOCM and DOCX formats are integrated in the Office bundle. This would also mean XML support should be discontinued. Software supporting both formats but not using similar implementation is exempt from the ban. This is the case of iWork’s Pages, TextEdit and OpenOffice. The patent holder i4i has said to be satisfied with the verdict as it protects the development work of the company.

Microsoft has tried to minimize the verdict and said that to comply with it a new version would be released ahead January 11th, in which the “little-used feature” would be pulled. It also said that beta versions of Word 2010 and Office 2010 do not include i4i technology. However, the claims of unimportance are contradicted by its intention of demanding an en banc rehearing in the Court of Appeals. A writ of certiorari or a judicial review from the Supreme Court is an option for Microsoft to try to cancel the restrictions.


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