Who would have thought that after all the years of Microsoft Office that it would be banned from sale due to patent infringement. After a ruling back in May for the same issue, Microsoft appealed and this time lost. The infringement i for Word’s handling of .xml, .docx, and .docm files of which infringed upon i4i’s patented XML handling algorithms. Since Microoft was found guilty of infringement, Office and Word are banned from sale after January 11th, 2010. It’s still unclear if they will just pay the company and continue use, but for now Microsoft is preparing versions of Office 2007 without the XML features it infringes upon.
Imagine a world without Word and Office. What we use, Open Office, Google Docs or perhaps iWork? Either way we are sure this is not the end of MS Office as it bring Microsoft a bit too much cash flow for them to just set it aside.
