patent

Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen has failed in a bid to win patent damages against numerous online retailers, as well as Google and YouTube. He's been given until late December to come up with more specific claims. Allen's lawsuit named AOL, Apple, ... eBay, Facebook, Google, Netflix, Yahoo and YouTube, plus retailers Officemax, Office Depot and Staples. But a federal judge said Allen hadn't been specific enough in his filing, meaning "the court and defendants are left to guess what devices infringe on the four patents." (Source: wsj.com ) Patent Copyrights Date back to 1992 The patents belong to ... (view more)

In a bid to avoid an enormous $290 million fine, Microsoft is challenging the Supreme Court's handling of patent infringement cases. The company was hit with the financial penalty after it was found that Microsoft Word violated an XML tag patent ... owned by Canadian company i4i. Having failed in a federal appeal, Microsoft is no longer able to challenge the ruling that it did indeed violate the patent. However, Microsoft has continued to argue that the patent is not valid. It claims to have evidence that products using the technology patented by i4i were on sale more than a year before the ... (view more)

Microsoft recently lost its latest battle to have a $290 million decision over copyrighted Word XML functionality overturned. In a move to overcome another decision made against it earlier this year, the software giant has paid $200 million to ... VirnetX to keep that company quiet over its own patented technology. Back in March, a Tyler, Texas jury found that Microsoft had infringed on a copyright owned by VirnetX. The patent involved virtual private network (or VPN) technology used in Microsoft's Windows XP and Vista operating systems. The Redmond-based firm was ordered to pay a hefty $105.7 ... (view more)

Microsoft has filed a lawsuit claiming an online software operator breached nine of its patents. The general reaction thus far is that the case has much to do about trying to deter a business competitor, rather than protecting genuine innovation. ... The case is against Salesforce.com, a company which offers customer management services: its slogan is that it is "the enterprise cloud-computing company", an idea borne out by its phone number, 1-800-NO-SOFTWARE. Most of Salesforce's products are based on marketing campaigns and tracking sales leads, putting it directly in competition with Microsoft ... (view more)

One of Microsoft's last hopes of escaping a $290 million fine for MS Word patent violations has once again fallen by the wayside. It means the company must either hope for an unlikely hearing at the Supreme Court, or pay up the cash. The case ... involves XML, a variant on web programming language HTML. Whereas HTML only covers the formatting and presentation of data, XML allows for description and classification of the content of that data. Series of Appeals End in Failure Microsoft Word lets users open XML documents, but the technique it uses to do so was ruled to have breached a patent by ... (view more)

Microsoft had a busy day in court this past Thursday. First, it unsuccessfully lobbied to have an injunction related to patented XML features in its Word software overturned. In another case, Microsoft filed suit against a video game hardware ... producer whose game controllers look similar to the original Xbox 360 model. Microsoft May be Mulling Supreme Court Appeal In regard to the XML lawsuit: Microsoft failed in a bid to have a full appeals court review last year's decision that found the software company in violation of a patent owned by tiny Toronto, Canada-based i4i's patent. The patent ... (view more)

Microsoft has lost another appeal to keep Microsoft Word 2007 on store shelves in its current form. An appeals court on Tuesday found that the company had infringed on Canadian firm i4i's patent for a built-in XML editor. Microsoft and i4i aroused ... much attention back over the summer , when a U.S. District Court judge in Eastern Texas found that the Redmond-based software giant had infringed on the much smaller Toronto company's patent for an XML editor that is a critical part of the Office program Word. Rather than immediately set about changing the program to avoid the patent conflict, ... (view more)

Just a few months after being slammed by a Texas federal judge for infringing on the patent of a Canadian company, a similarly critical lawsuit has, in this instance, gone Microsoft's way. Earlier this week a Rhode Island judge overturned a ... Singapore company's $388 million victory against the Redmond-based software giant. MS Accused of Piracy, using Antipiracy Software First filed in a Rhode Island federal court in 2003, the case involved Singapore-based Uniloc, which accused Microsoft of illegally incorporating its antipiracy technology with Windows operating system (OS) and Microsoft's ... (view more)

In the aftermath of i4i's patent infringement victory over Microsoft in a Texas courtroom, two more small companies are making their way to the Lone Star State in hopes that David will slay Goliath once more. About a week ago, Toronto-based i4i made ... headlines around the world after a shock courtroom victory that saw Microsoft ordered to pay them $240 million in patent infringement damages. Microsoft was also asked to stop selling their popular Word software within 60 days of the ruling. Companies Seek Unspecified Damages Now, Allvoice Developments (a U.S. provider of speech recognition ... (view more)

Prominent PC makers say Microsoft's warning that the recent MS Word injunction could cause the company and the industry "irreparable damage" is no hype after all. The claim comes as i4i makes it clear it won't be backing down in the fight to protect ... its patent. As reported yesterday , Microsoft is asking a court to overturn an order that it stop selling Word in its current form from October 12; it wants the order put on hold until the appeals process is complete. The firm says that the order would cause it "irreparable harm". That's not an understatement. The term "irreparable ... (view more)