Canadian firm predicts victory in Microsoft patent case

A US District Court judge in Texas ruled August 12 that Microsoft's popular word processing program violates an XML patent held by Toronto-based i4i and ordered it to pay more than 290 million dollars in damages and interest.

Judge Leonard Davis also issued an injunction that would have banned Microsoft from selling Word products that include the patented technology.

Microsoft, however, sought a stay of the injunction pending an appeal and a US Court of Appeals granted the request on Thursday. Microsoft has appealed the original judgment and the case is to be heard on September 23.

On Friday, i4i said it expects to prevail.

"Microsoft's scare tactics about the consequences of the injunction cannot shield it from the imminent review of the case by the Federal Circuit Court of Appeal on the September 23 appeal," i4i chairman Loudon Owen said.

"i4i is confident that the Final Judgment in favor of i4i, which included a finding of willful patent infringement by Microsoft and an injunction against Microsoft Word, was the correct decision and that i4i will prevail on the appeal," he said.

"To paraphrase the great heavyweight boxing champion Joe Louis, 'They can run, but they can't hide.' Microsoft's time will eventually run out," Owen said.

Microsoft was accused by i4i of infringing on a 1998 XML patent in its Word 2003 and Word 2007 programs.

Word uses XML, or Extensible Markup Language, to open .XML, .DOCX, and .DOCM files.

(c) 2009 AFP