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Court Bans Microsoft From Selling Word
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| In the latest apparent case of the U.S. patent system run amok, Judge Leonard
| Davis of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas issued a
| permanent injunction on Tuesday preventing Microsoft from selling versions of
| Word that handle custom XML in the form of the .DOCX, .DOCM, and .XML file
| formats. Which would mean that Microsoft is now forbidden from selling Word
| 2003 or Word 2007. And since it also forbids Microsoft from testing such
| versions of Word, there would seem to be implications for Office 2010 as
| well.
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http://technologizer.com/2009/08/12/court-bans-microsoft-from-selling-word/
Softpatent trolls OOXML and Word
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| We may add that while Microsoft always pays lip service to patent reform and
| patent quality, it effectively obstructed even moderate steps of pragmatic
| reform in the field of software patenting with massive lobbying investment
| and an ideological agenda. An ideological motivation you don't find among all
| the other players which have a real business. The massive lobbying also
| applies to colonial attitudes towards patent regimes of third nations in
| which the American company operates, or the European Union, our main area of
| operations as the FFII e.V. Ironically Microsoft itself is a favourite target
| of troll challenges and no one knows how much profits Marshall Phelps
| actually generates by selling their Microsoft FAT patents. In the spectacular
| case of TomTom we were told it was a very small amount. Some American critics
| as Brian Kahin speak of a patent bubble of low value patents but how is it
| going to burst? When you have a licensing business a good patent is one that
| hurts. Maybe the Encyclopedia Brittannica is an example, it failed
| commercially and now became an (unsuccesful) patent enforcement agency
| against actual market players.
|
| In the recent referral G03/08 about software patentability an European Patent
| Office case named T 424/03 (Microsoft) was center to the debate. Find the
| Amicus letters here. Currently you also have a pending referral on Bilski in
| the US Supreme Court which is more far reaching than software. In the US many
| examination tests were dismantled such as the machine or transformation box
| test which opened the flood gates and unbalanced the system. It was
| reintroduced under the Bilski ruling but appealed at the supreme court. The
| Bilski test does not rule out software or business method patents but
| provides means to reduce the pressure within the examination system in later
| stages.
|
| First you wreck the law, then the trolls wreck you.
|
| [...]
|
| Right now ISO/IEC 29500 ("OOXML") is patent encumbered and cannot be called
| an "open standard" according to conventional definitions and looks unusable
| for the public sector.
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http://www.noooxml.org/forum/t-175409/softpatent-trolls-ooxml-and-word
Last year:
Is Microsoft Now Banned from EU Contracts?
http://www.computerworlduk.com/toolbox/open-source/blogs/index.cfm?entryid=697&blogid=14
Euro MP thinks Microsoft should be banned from government contracts
http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/04/10/member-eu-parliament-asks
Green MEP says Microsoft should be excluded from EU contract awarding procedure
http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/106338/from/rss09
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