Ban on Microsoft Word and Office sales begins today
Microsoft has been the center of a legal battle from a small patent owning company, i4i for many months for infringing on it's "Custom XML" patent which is included in Microsoft Word 2003 and 2007 and is part of Office 2007 suites. Recently, Microsoft lost the court battle against I4i, after stalling for a few months with an emergency motion and was ordered to take Word 2007 off the market by January 11th, 2010. In addition, Microsoft must also pay i4i damages of $290m.
Today, the 11th of January, marks the day that Word was to be off the market, but to the consumer nothing has changed. According to Microsoft, they have complied with the court's ruling and have released a 'revised version' of Microsoft Word and Office 2007 suites that does not have the 'Custom XML' technology.
The new version, which hits US stores today, has no visual differences and will not be discernable from the previous variant of Microsoft Office 2007. Microsoft has also removed Office 2003 from MSDN and Technet earlier last week.
According to the BBC, Microsoft filed another appeal against the injunction on January 8, even though they have already challenged the ruling once before. The latest appeal has been filed because Microsoft believed the decision conflicted with "established precedents governing trial procedure and the determination of damages" according to Kevin Kutz, director of public affairs at Microsoft.