A US appeals court upheld a previous court decision against Microsoft for patent infringement in the latest versions of Word. The computer giant has to pay $ 290 million in fines and is prohibited from marketing the text editor as of January 11, 2010, in the United States.
The process has been running since 2007 and is related to the infringement of a Canadian company patent, in the way Word 2003 and 2007 encode and provide information.
After the courts ruled in favor of i4i last August, and with the confirmation now announced, Microsoft has made it known that it is considering legal alternatives, namely a request for a hearing with the judges or the appeal to the Supreme Court, he says. the international press.
Trying to circumvent the court decision and continue to sell Word, the Redmond company said it would withdraw from the editor the appeal that motivated the lawsuit. There may also be a significant change in the new version of the application, which is scheduled for launch in 2010.
Copies of Word that have already been sold are not affected by the decision, which means that users can freely use the software and receive technical support from Microsoft.
