These days’ patent battles are ten a penny. Usually they involve Apple Vs the rest of the world, but it’s not always the tech giants that turn to the courts. Sometimes the little guys need a little help in getting what’s rightly their’s and unfortunately for Microsoft this is what small Canadian company i4i did.
The company successfully won $290m after they proved Word 2003 and 2007 used a text manipulation tool which had been patented by them. This was back in 2007 and Microsoft are still steaming. In 2007 Microsoft were told by the courts that they “wilfully breached the patent” and thus were ordered to cough up the cash and to also stop selling the infringing software.
Four years later and Microsoft are claiming a judge used the “wrong standard” and that the whopping $290m award should be overturned. The Supreme Court is having none of it. They said the “clear and convincing” standard was the correct one. Pretty lucky because I don’t think i4i have kept the receipts for their company yachts, Villas and helicopters.
Never mind Microsoft there’s plenty more patent battles in the sea. The red-faced company said of the legal fiasco: “While the outcome is not what we had hoped for, we will continue to advocate for changes to the law that will prevent abuse of the patent system and protect inventors who hold patents representing true innovation.”
To be honest it’s nice to see i4i win, again, as it seems they proved their patent had been infringed fair and square and so they deserve compensation. With big tech companies like Google, Apple and Microsoft getting more and more powerful it’s important that they know they aren’t above the law and its always good to see the little guys win.
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