Microsoft told to stop sales of Word in USA!

Microsoft told to stop sales of Word in USA!

Patent lawsuits are surprisingly funny. Here is a new one that is making headlines on the web.

Microsoft has been barred from selling their MS Word application in the US market.

Toronto-based i4i has won an injunction against the US based software giant.

The courts have now barred Microsoft from selling or importing to the United States any Microsoft Word products that have the capability of opening .XML, .DOCX or DOCM files which contains XML data.

Microsoft has been given 2 months time to comply with this order.

Microsoft has also been told by the courts to pay the Canadian company more than $290 million in damages for infringing on their patented technologies.

Michel Vulpe, i4i’s founder had this to say on the developments: “i4i will do its utmost to support custom XML users, which is particularly important to implement the ISO 29500 OOXML standard.”

Looks like Microsoft would have to settle this lawsuit outside the court and pay a bounty to i4i to get out of this funny situation.

Microsoft Word is a critical component of Microsoft Office and the company cannot afford to stop sales of this product in the US market.

Checkout: Judge: Microsoft can’t sell Word anymore