I4i says not out to destroy Microsoft Word
The chairman of the company that has won a landmark injunction against Microsoft says his goal is not to see Microsoft Word pulled from store shelves.
In fact, I4i Chairman Loudon Owen said he is one of the hundreds of millions of people who uses Word and the other Microsoft Office tools every day.
I4i Chairman Loudon Owen
(Credit: McLean Watson)"We're not seeking to stop Microsoft's business and we're not seeking to interfere with all the users of Word out there," Owen said in a telephone interview on Wednesday. He added that this week's ruling orders an injunction only against Word shipping in a form that uses I4i's custom XML technology.
As noted earlier, Microsoft has several options, including legal appeals, pursuing a settlement, or recrafting Word in a way so that it doesn't infringe on I4i's technology.
Although he couldn't comment on such a technical workaround, Owen said he would be happy to see Microsoft come out with a version of Word that removes the infringing technology.
"The injunction is not saying there is no more Word for the world," Owen said. "That is not our intention and that would not be a sensible remedy."
The judge's ruling, in addition to upholding a $200 million monetary award from May, does issue an injunction against Microsoft that would bar Word in its current form, though. The ruling would go into effect in 60 days, unless Microsoft wins a stay as part of an appeal, which is currently in the works.
As for the size of the monetary verdict in the Word case, Owen wouldn't say how it compares to the company's annual revenue, but noted it is a big deal.
"It's obviously a material verdict by US patent verdict (standards), but we think it is fair," he said.
But Owen said I4i's focus is on its products, not on the courts. Owen said I4i's mission is trying to make database-ready all of the world's unstructured information. Only about 10 percent of data today is structured, but XML can change that.
The company, which has about 30 employees and has been running since 1993, has products in use by a number of large companies, including many large pharmaceutical names such as Amgen, Bayer and Biogen.
Interestingly, though, one of the company's biggest projects was its 2001 overhaul of the US Patent and Trademark Office's own Web site for patent submissions. The patent involved in its suit against Microsoft, though, was filed in 1994 and granted in 1998.
Owen said he couldn't comment on whether there have been any recent settlement talks. Asked whether there might be room for some sort of partnership between the two companies, Owen quipped: "Microsoft is too big for us to buy at this point."
He then added that the company's goal is to help structure the world's information and it will do whatever it takes to reach that goal. "We are always ready willing and able to partner with any good partner, whoever that is."
Owen, who is co-founder of the Mclean Watson venture capital firm that backs i4i, does have some experience negotiating with Microsoft. According to his bio on that firm's Web site, he helped finance and advice 3D animation firm Softimage, which was sold to Microsoft in 1994.
During her years at CNET News, Ina Fried has changed beats several times, changed genders once, and covered both of the Pirates of Silicon Valley. These days, most of her attention is focused on Microsoft. E-mail Ina. 
Maybe Microsoft should have simply paid up? It would've been a lot cheaper...
BTW, the $200m figure (and then some) was imposed by the jury, not the plaintiff.
They got too much money!!!
I would love to have the Supreme Court get this case and dismiss it on those grounds.
2) To get an injunction for a US company to stop selling there product to US citizens, the case would have to be held in the US. They will probably have one in Canadian court against MS Canada if MS doesn't come to some sort of agreement/arangement with I4I.
It's not the fact that they went after MS that shows them to be patent trolls. It is WHERE they went after MS which is Texas which is known to be friendly to patent trolls.
It would be akin to trying a defendant who committed crimes in Michigan tried in Texas for them because the Texas jury is more likely to render a guilty verdict. i4i should have been forced to file their claim with the Federal court in Seattle, not Texas.
In all seriousness, the patent office passing these kinds of vague ideas that are really just a summary of natural human deduction is absurd. Much like my wheel example above, the process to come to a conclusion is simple and foolish to patent. A great man once said, "the conclusion is obvious once you are shown it, however some times the conclusion is just obvious."
Time to rotate out the staff at the patent office and stop this nonsense. I once saw a patent for a device that covered your feet and kept them dry. Isnt that a shoe? Or is he proposing a raincoat for a shoe? In either case they are both simple conclusions.
I think you misunderstand. I4i really is in a bind, because if Microsoft stops selling Word, then i4i's own product x4o has no market. I4i doesn't want Microsoft to stop selling Word; what they really want, is for Microsoft to eliminate the ability to read/create custom XML, so that their own product x4o can continue to piggy back and reap the revenue off Microsoft's Word.
In a word: Irony.
In two words: Patent Troll.
I didn't misunderstand, what you are saying and what the previous post said were two totally different things. I agree with you on the x4o product depending on MS word staying around.
What i was referring to was that people posting on these types of stories tend to always say that everything is too common sense to be patented, or that of course thats how that would work, like they themselves could have come up with the same solution with no effort at all. In truth I doubt that one person i have ever seen post that type of comment could have ever come up with the solution themselves or even as a collective group.
For example, if I write a book, should I be able to patent that book? If I write a song, should I be able to patent that song? What about a certain pattern of speech? A layout of lighting?
All of those things can be copyrighted, none can be patented. There's a very good reason for that. In all of those examples, I haven't invented anything. Patents are for inventions.
Software is, strictly speaking, a pattern of code just like a book is a pattern of letters, just like music is a pattern of notes. Software should be copyrighted and I would have no problems with copyrighted software.
In fact, copyrighted software would make a lot of sense. Patented software doesn't make any sense at all.
Somewhere around 1880, for example, a guy called Thomas Edison was granted a patent on the idea of using a single DC current generator to provide several houses with electricity from a common source. Even in those days, that idea was so self-evident that it shouldn't have been patentable.
I don't think they are patent trolls. If they were trolls, then they would have asked for the amount that Microsoft would have to pay them in royalties. Imagine if you come up with something that can do something better than anything else, and they you realize that it is being sold as part of a product by another company. If you think about it, you can see why i4i is pissed, and why the went to a state where they knew they could win.
If I take a broom handle and break off the broom part to scratch my back, I should not be able to patent that. If I take that same handle then stick a cloth on the end to wash my back, I should not be able to patent that. So in short, YES things that are are common deduction should not be patentable. If one man invented the stick washer and a team of inventors didn?t, doesn?t validate the stick washer guys idea. It just means that too many cooks spoil the stew.
of course they don't want it pulled. if it is then they won't any $$$
Microsoft has messed up with Vista big time, and it looks like now they will lose now from there word 2003/2007 product, which you have to remember is also bundled with office 2003/2007, and the Mac versions of both of these, so the injunctour is on both products.
There only saving grace right now is that Windows 7 is coming out in the next couple of months. That and there yearly revenue is over $58 billion and operating expenses are about half that. So I think they can afford to pay it up.
http://www.microsoft.com/msft/earnings/FY09/earn_rel_q4_09.mspx
I totally disagree. Microsoft has a long history of stealing other companies intelectual property while suing anyone who they think infringes on theirs.
**************
Kinda like how the EU is funding their economic problems with money from MS and Intel, eh?
MS should pull all office licenses that have the infringing tech, and when people complain, point them to these patent trolls. Then let them be sued by the users to get money that the torlls get from MS.
I highly doubt that much money went into an already existing technology. Custom XML is an extension of XML, which is an eXtensible Markup Langauge... so really, the problem here is that even though they own a patent for their product, it's public knowledge. It's like putting a patent on bubble wrap.
...Ha, just kidding.
http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=nanterre+softimage+microsoft+3+million+francs
Micro$oft's master invention, this 'FAT table' received also great international news coverage, when Micro$oft was told by EU-judges that their invention was not innovative enough, and therefor not recognized outside the US.
What goes around, comes around! I hope Micro$oft is getting slugged all the way!
Go I4i, we are supporting you!
Remember that respect is earned, not given. By using such immature slang a 'Micro$oft" instead of the proper name of Microsoft, you've pretty much already derailed any chance of getting respect for your comments.
Seriously, think about it. Which person will get more positive results with a higher chance of being respected for their opinion:
Person A: A calm individual who presents their case with thought, logic, and points to back up their statement, while also respecting those who may or may not agree with their point of view in a diplomatic and professional manner.
Person B: A rabid foaming at the mouth lout who spends more time taunting with childish insults and hurling comments around like a drunken sailor on a three day binge, cursing at anyone who looks at them wrong or has the audacity to actually disagree with their ego-driven sophomoric drivel while standing on an overturned newspaper box.
It's up to you to choose which type of person you want to be, but your comments to date have put you squarely into the Person B category and that means that while you may have a good point to make, it's totally lost in the way you deliver it.
You claim that you were glad to see Microsoft have a ruling handed down to them that their FAT system was not innovative enough, and that outside of the US it didn't matter. Well, in this case, i4i, a CANADIAN-based group, is in the same situation. Their lawsuit is based off of paper-thin claims, and they offer very little supporting evidence. However, in thsi case, since Microsoft is in the defendant side, you support i4i? It's people like you that have no business or place in the tech industry. This entire industry is based off of growth, innovation, and progress. To sit there and claim that you were against a company doing something, but to support another company who turns around and does the EXACT SAME THING to the same company is so stupid, it actually goes beyond the use of the word stupid. Whether you know it, or like it, you are an embarassment to the entire tech community, regardless of a single thought, contribution, or opinion that you have had, or do have, outside of the above comment you made. I have seen even some rather anti-Microsoft people shake their heads, and make comments like "Do you think Microsoft might be getting hosed on this one?" Yet, in spite of it all, you sit here, and cheer on i4i, a company no one knows anything about, including you, as they demonstrate an incredible amount of greed. Anyone who thinks this lawsuit is about anything but another no-name dipping their hand into the Microsoft money honeypot is well out of touch with reality. Microsoft's lawsuit was DIRECTLY related to another company's use of THEIR creation, without due credit. This, however, is about a company looking for a big cash injection, and an early retirement. So, jtjt145, I encourage you to take some time, consider the impact that this lawsuit has on the entire technical community, rather than what amounts to nothing mroe than your ridiculous and unfounded assertions and bias against Microsoft, and THEN comment. Until that time, I can only thank you for wasting anyone's time who took the time to read what you had to say. You don't have to like what I said, and I'm 99% sure you won't, nor will you see your own errors in judgement. But, that aside, at least I can say that it has been pointed out. And, judging from some of the other comments to your post, I'm nto alone in my point-of-view on this.
--Master Joe
What they're talking about is a way of doing away with keeping format and structure information within the actual text stream. No need to parse like mad the way you would processing RTF or HTML docs.
To be quite honest, I thought MS was already doing something like this in generating the Document Object Model. Consider all the information in an average document as rendered by the DOM, and consider too how the DOC format is structured when looking at it in a hex editor. Surely there is some kind of mapping system similar to what the patent describes happening inside a Word 2000 DOC in order to make that information available so quickly on document.open.
A nuisance lawsuit at best, but one well worth MS settling, I think.
With the lawyers they have at their disposal and resources, I find it odd that MS seams to not be officially challenging the validity of the patent up to now. I mean they make little statements, but even after a $200 million judgement that they say they will of course appeal there has been no indication that they are challenging the patent through the patent office, and they did not produce any evidence of prior art to attempt to do so in the court cases up to this point if what i have read is accurate. That tends to give me the impression that they know it is a valid patent.
To me, it looked like what they patented is saving style information separatly instead of embedding it in the document stream, and using metacodes to provide the necessary links between the two. I immediately thought of the way CSS files are being used alongside HTML, the style names being the metacodes. The abstract also made it clear that storing metadata separately from the document is essential.
So what I don't quite understand is how they could sue MS about the docx format and win, because that's based on NOT storing metadata separately (or is "in a separate section in the file" separate enough?)
If ooxml uses any technology listed in this patent, microsoft could be in store for a second lawsuit as well as have ooxml ISO status yanked away.
Just something to think about.
It's about the methodology required to interpret document formats with entirely separate content and formatting (posibly in separate files) to an extent that CSS doesn't go to. This would mean that the content will appear as raw text with a separate file/section appearing as formatting with references to positions and formatting for those positions. It also means formatting can be loaded into a separate data structure as variables and objects or a DOM tree rather than interpreted text.
From a programmer's perspective, this makes things a good deal easier than inserting tags into the text stream while editing or interleaving data on load and save but I'm not sure it's actually more efficient on runtime.
Just remember, this also affects ODF so while a certain amount od schaudenfraude would come from Microsoft losing here, it's not in anyone's interests in the long run (and I do love to see a software patent invalidated).
http://watch.bnn.ca/#clip202835
with the heads of i4i.
They claim MS approached them for help with XML, and then after working together for a while MS simply cut off all contact and released their own stuff incorporating some of i4i's technology.
If this is all true then it looks like MS screwed these guys over, and then got burned in return!!
However, I think this suit has far reaching consequences besides word. I can't imagine that it wouldn't also apply to excel and the rest of office. And then expand that further to other software packages and on and on. Once you set legal precedence its pretty hard to reverse. (and judges and lawyers aren't exactly techies. they may know the law but they don't understand computers)
You are all just a bunch of non-technical(who dont even work in IT) people ganging up on others because you dont like a foreign company who doesnt want this to happen to them finally stick up for themselves to prevent this from happening.
Microsoft and Intel are the 2 most blatent copiers and rebuilders in the IT industry and someone finally decides not to take it ******** is attacked by a bunch of AMERICAN FRAT BOYS who want to attack the smaller guy just because they can. Thats pathetic and show what a bunch of loosers you really are.
BTW I work in the IT industry and half of it is about lieing to get a high paying job. A lot of people Ive worked with have lied and cheated their way to the top....so no its not all about innovation and moving forward as someone has so uneloquently put it.
[CNET editors' note: Prohibited content deleted.]
Note to MS Legal: software patents aren't weapons - unless you want mutually assured destruction. They're like tollbooths for rent-seekers - only the lawyers win when they get taken out. This case is just the latest outrageous reason why all software patents should be banned - with no exceptions.
Can i haz sum Freedom to Innovate Network, plz?
- by dennisheadley August 15, 2009 6:01 PM PDT
- I honestly can't believe after all the stories done on this issue, that have appeared on every single news site the is even remotely covering technology news, that people are still spewing this garbage about this company. Saying that they never actually made a product when they had the top product out there for like a five year period until this happened with Microsoft. Claiming that Microsoft didn't know about it when they admitted it in court documents already that they did. Saying that they sat on this till now before trying to cash in which they never did as they have been trying to come to an understanding with Microsoft since 2004 which court records also show. This company has done everything that a small company can do to try to avoid a fight with Microsoft but the have the right and the actual damn duty to protect their employees and their families by defending their IP and not allowing MS to put them out of business with their own work. I'm a windows vista user and an office user, but I can see they really did something wrong here and they should not be allowed to get away with it just because they are Microsoft and Word is too important.
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- by brian.lee August 15, 2009 8:47 PM PDT
- I can see Microsoft screwing these guys over by breaking their product in MS word some how... not the nicest thing to do but I can see it happening.
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