Microsoft defends itself in court

Software giant Microsoft has defended itself in an appeal against a US court’s decision that ordered the company stop selling its Word software due to a patent violation.

The judge found Microsoft violated a patent held by Canadian company i4i that covered a certain type of coding technology. Microsoft Word was ordered to be stripped from shelves within 60 days.

But Microsoft has released an opening brief that says the judge in the case did not define the case properly, and that i4i’s patent is separate to Word’s technology.

“Because i4i’s own experts admitted that Word does not store a metacode map in a separate file from content, and does not allow for independent manipulation of a metacode map and mapped content,” the brief states, “the jury’s infringement verdict should be reversed.”

It also argues i4i’s patent invention was a derivation from a prior technology, that the jury did not specify the theories under which Microsoft was liable and the $US200 million fine ordered by the court was “excessive”.