Nicked Word technology
A Texas
jury has ordered Microsoft cough up $200 million dollars to a Canadian company
for patent infringement.
I4i took Microsoft to the cleaners after it violated
a patent held by her company in its Word processing programs. Karen Heater,
president of the Canadian based outfit, said she was very pleased with the
result.
Microsoft said it planned to appeal the verdict handed down by the
jury in a US District Court in Tyler, Texas. A Microsoft spokesman moaned
that his outfit clearly told the jury that Redmond did not infringe and that the
i4i patent is invalid. He said the award of damages is legally and factually
unsupported. The thought that a jury might disagree with its cunningly worded
arguments is apparently grounds for an appeal.
Redmond is not having a lot
of luck with its patent cases lately. Last month a federal jury ordered
Microsoft to write a cheque for $388 million to Uniloc, for infringing on an
anti-piracy software patent held by the Singapore and US-based outfit.