The United States Supreme Court will begin hearing arguments Monday for and against changing U.S. patent law to make it easier to invalidate patents -the latest chapter in a historic legal battle between a small Toronto company and the largest software firm on earth.
Toronto's i4i Inc. has been challenging Microsoft Corp. in lower courts for more than four years over a piece of code used in Microsoft's Word 2003 product. Since 1998, Toronto's i4i Inc. has held a patent on a technology used to open docu-ments in the popular Word processing program.
In August of 2009, more than two years after i4i's initial complaint was filed, a U.S. federal district court judge in Texas ruled Microsoft had "wilfully infringed" that patent by using i4i's technology in its Word software. Awarding i4i damages of $290 million US, the judge also issued a permanent injunction barring Microsoft from selling Word 2003 or Word 2007 until it had removed i4i's code. The company complied with the court order and removed the features, but Microsoft is famous for never fully backing down.
Toronto's i4i Inc. has been challenging Microsoft Corp. in lower courts for more than four years over a piece of code used in Microsoft's Word 2003 product. Since 1998, Toronto's i4i Inc. has held a patent on a technology used to open docu-ments in the popular Word processing program.
In August of 2009, more than two years after i4i's initial complaint was filed, a U.S. federal district court judge in Texas ruled Microsoft had "wilfully infringed" that patent by using i4i's technology in its Word software. Awarding i4i damages of $290 million US, the judge also issued a permanent injunction barring Microsoft from selling Word 2003 or Word 2007 until it had removed i4i's code. The company complied with the court order and removed the features, but Microsoft is famous for never fully backing down.