# Texas Judge Orders Microsoft to Stop Selling Word



## LarryFlowers (Sep 22, 2006)

In a patent dispute over "XML" with a Canadian company called i4i, an East Texas (patent lunatics) Judge has ordered Microsoft to stop selling Word. 

While I doubt that Microsoft will stop selling Word, you can expect some legal manuevering today to stay the order while the appeals process works its way through the courts.

The Canadian firms patent dates from 1998.. which makes me wonder about the viability of a patent involving XML from 11 years ago, though not to say that they might not have a case.

Are juries competent to decided cases this technical?

Why also does the Federal Judiciary refuse to take notice of the fact that every patent troll looking for a big hit files their case in these same East Texas courts.

An amazing side effect of these cases, is that East Texas companies are being named in the suits... in some cases the companies are nothing more that a regisered name with no physical existence... in order to keep them in the East Texas courts. The companies named have no interest at all in the cases.


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## Stuart Sweet (Jun 19, 2006)

I think that Microsoft should start suing gangster rappers who use the term "Word." to mean, "It is a truism with which I agree."


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## Fontano (Feb 7, 2008)

Is there a link to the details, as I would love to see what patent exists for XML, given that it used by countless companies and applications.


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## Mike Bertelson (Jan 24, 2007)

Stuart Sweet said:


> I think that Microsoft should start suing gangster rappers who use the term "Word." to mean, "It is a truism with which I agree."


Word Up Dawg....  :lol:

That's an interesting question Larry. What level of technical knowledge would juries need?

I guess that like anything else, the material would have to be tailored to the level you could expect the general public to understand...I have no idea what that means... :scratchin :grin:

Mike


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## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

We (or at least all of our hard drives) might all benefit from XML going away. I'm sure that Microsoft could disable the use of XML in Office without sacrificing functionality for the lion's share of users.

I can't imagine how you couldn't teach just about anyone about how to identify XML in under 30 minutes. If more people understood XML, they certainly wouldn't be as excited about it as they seem to be. For my own purposes, I use tab separated values to accomplish the same end in a whole lot less space.


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## Stuart Sweet (Jun 19, 2006)

In what way do you feel that XML is a hazard to our hard drives? I don't mean to be rude, I simply seek an explanation as I had not heard this claim before.


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## kfcrosby (Dec 17, 2006)

I can see it now, M$ will issue an WGA command to stop WORD from functioning. 

Just imagine the resulting chaos.....

not gonna happen !


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## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

Stuart Sweet said:


> In what way do you feel that XML is a hazard to our hard drives? I don't mean to be rude, I simply seek an explanation as I had not heard this claim before.


XML bulks up already bulky (often UTF-16) text data by adding a relatively enormous amount of overhead. Every table, field and record is enclosed in multi-byte tags.

Here's an example from the Internet of a three record CD library:

```
<CATALOG>
<CD>
<TITLE>Empire Burlesque</TITLE>
<ARTIST>Bob Dylan</ARTIST>
<COUNTRY>USA</COUNTRY>
<COMPANY>Columbia</COMPANY>
<PRICE>10.90</PRICE>
<YEAR>1985</YEAR>
</CD>
<CD>
<TITLE>Hide your heart</TITLE>
<ARTIST>Bonnie Tyler</ARTIST>
<COUNTRY>UK</COUNTRY>
<COMPANY>CBS Records</COMPANY>
<PRICE>9.90</PRICE>
<YEAR>1988</YEAR>
</CD>
<CD>
<TITLE>Greatest Hits</TITLE>
<ARTIST>Dolly Parton</ARTIST>
<COUNTRY>USA</COUNTRY>
<COMPANY>RCA</COMPANY>
<PRICE>9.90</PRICE>
<YEAR>1982</YEAR>
</CD>
</CATALOG>
```
The above weighs in at about 522 characters (less any UTF overhead).

The CSV version


```
CD,TITLE,ARTIST,COUNTRY,COMPANY,PRICE,YEAR
"Empire Burlesque","Bob Dylan","USA","Columbia",10.9,1985
"Hide Your Heart","Bonnie Tyler","UK","CBS Records,9.9,1988
"Greatest Hits","Dolly Parton","USA","RCA",9.9,1982
```
This is a paltry 215 bytes. The TSV file is smaller yet (192 bytes) as the quotes aren't necessary.

XML brings some error checking (for confirming missing data, not correcting it) but other than that, it isn't our friend in storage efficiency.


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## Grentz (Jan 10, 2007)

The new XML formats are a ton more lightweight than the older office formats though and other word processor/spreadsheet formats used by other programs.

Office files are not just metadata and text...they can get pretty advanced and bulky and the XML formats deal with it MUCH better than the older and other formats out there. Excel with XML files is fabulous for example.

Our HDDs are thanking us for using Office XML files vs. what was used in the past.......


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## Hansen (Jan 1, 2006)

Judge Ward's court has become quite busy these days with patent infringement suits. It has become a whole cottage industry for Dallas/Tyler/Longview. However, the 5th Circuit CoA has taken notice and not too long ago transferred to Ohio a patent suit with specious ties to East Texas on the grounds of "convenience" (or rather, the East Texas forum was not convenient for the parties and witnesses). I suspect that this will result in others being transferred out of East Texas and the filing attorneys will try to "create" better ties to the East Texas jurisdiction to keep it in the Plaintiff oriented venue. 

As for juries, patent suits are like any other lawsuit with complex issues and the key is educating the jurors to understand the product/technology or whatever the issue might be so they can decide the fact issues. This usually boils down to hiring experts that are knowledgeable and have excellent communication skills.


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## Fontano (Feb 7, 2008)

Save our hard drives?

Seriously now, with hard drives hitting the 2TB for a SINGLE DRIVE,
And prices much less then $0.10 a GIGABYTE, yah I think the extra space of the XML is just punishing us to the brink that we need to worry about it.

I have nearly 20TB of storage space accross my computers, and that doesn't even enclude the RAID 1 mirrors for a lot of it. 

I think the loss of the XML in the Microsoft Office arena, woudl be a real blow to the compatibility accross platforms and other software packages. Since going with Office 2007, I have had less and less issues going between Mac and Windows, and allowing other programs to read the same files.


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## Marlin Guy (Apr 8, 2009)

LarryFlowers said:


> an East Texas (patent lunatics) Judge has ordered Microsoft to stop selling Word.


Given Microsoft's propensity to apply for a patent on just about everything but clouds and water, I find that jeer to be a bit hypocritical.

Oh yeah, Gates is now working on weather control, so he'll be applying for those clouds and water patents soon enough. :lol:


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## Grentz (Jan 10, 2007)

Marlin Guy said:


> Given Microsoft's propensity to apply for a patent on just about everything but clouds and water, I find that jeer to be a bit hypocritical.
> 
> Oh yeah, Gates is now working on weather control, so he'll be applying for those clouds and water patents soon enough. :lol:


and amazingly enough, Apple is even worse with patents. They patent just about anything they can...way before it is even anything they have interest in using in actual products in many cases :lol:


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## Greg Alsobrook (Apr 2, 2007)

Grentz said:


> and amazingly enough, Apple is even worse with patents. They patent just about anything they can...way before it is even anything they have interest in using in actual products in many cases :lol:


According to the US Patent & Trademark Office Website...

Patents Applied for 2001-Present:

Apple Inc. - 661
Microsoft Corporation - 16,179

Good guess though... :sure:


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## LarryFlowers (Sep 22, 2006)

Hypocritical? I call it self defense.



Marlin Guy said:


> Given Microsoft's propensity to apply for a patent on just about everything but clouds and water, I find that jeer to be a bit hypocritical.
> 
> Oh yeah, Gates is now working on weather control, so he'll be applying for those clouds and water patents soon enough. :lol:


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## Grentz (Jan 10, 2007)

Greg Alsobrook said:


> According to the US Patent & Trademark Office Website...
> 
> Patents Applied for 2001-Present:
> 
> ...


I was not talking about the total number of patents per say, but the amount of off the wall patents. MS probably still has more just because of their size, but Apple has had some pretty crazy ones over the years.

MS is MUCH bigger and MUCH MUCH more diverse with their product sectors than Apple, no surprise they have way more patents.

It was not meant to be Apple vs. MS


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## HIPAR (May 15, 2005)

Once upon a time patents involved physical apparatus (I love that word). Now, 
a solution to any problem, no mater how trivial, is patentable. :sure:

--- CHAS


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## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

Grentz said:


> The new XML formats are a ton more lightweight than the older office formats though and other word processor/spreadsheet formats used by other programs.


If they lost any weight, it was because they are all Zip compressed. For all of the nasty things about XML, it is pretty compressible due to all those tags being repeated over and over again.


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## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

Fontano said:


> Seriously now, with hard drives hitting the 2TB for a SINGLE DRIVE, And prices much less then $0.10 a GIGABYTE, yah I think the extra space of the XML is just punishing us to the brink that we need to worry about it.


Consider the block size on a 2TB partition and how you could literally fill the entire drive with a few milliion single byte files. The TSV example I have was under 200 bytes, but it took up 32,768 bytes of storage space. The impact of larger files is less, but there's always another side to the story.

Having to use special tools to search a file is another problem. A plaintext search is complicated enough on a UTF-16 system but when you search an XML file for text that just happens to be the same as a field name, you're screwed unless you have a tool that recognizes and parses XML before it searches for the text. A TSV file can be searched with a simple text search and if you search for a field name, you'll only get one line showing the field layout as opposed to one line per record.

Lacking a data type definition and known field lengths, XML doesn't add much to what was already provided with delimited files.


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## Fontano (Feb 7, 2008)

harsh said:


> Consider the block size on a 2TB partition and how you could literally fill the entire drive with a few milliion single byte files. The TSV example I have was under 200 bytes, but it took up 32,768 bytes of storage space. The impact of larger files is less, but there's always another side to the story.
> 
> Having to use special tools to search a file is another problem. A plaintext search is complicated enough on a UTF-16 system but when you search an XML file for text that just happens to be the same as a field name, you're screwed unless you have a tool that recognizes and parses XML before it searches for the text. A TSV file can be searched with a simple text search and if you search for a field name, you'll only get one line showing the field layout as opposed to one line per record.
> 
> Lacking a data type definition and known field lengths, XML doesn't add much to what was already provided with delimited files.


To your first point: Solution - Spend $100 on another 1.5TB drive. And you are pitching a pretty darn extreme scenerio there, far from any pratical and most a-typical situations.
In your TSV Example, the system should be designed and setup properly for that type of storage solution (aka the proper block size, or a file structure system optimizes for tiny file sizes)

To your second point: And how does a proprietary data format file, going to make that any better? You would still another tool to search, load (parse), and process those files.
And you could make an argument that a properly defined XML file, with a program designed to work with it, could search faster then a start to finish brute force text search.

To your last point: Again, you are speaking of a generic, quicky, dirty XML file. The XML file that Microsoft uses in Word, is extremely define. And in fact Microsoft submitted it to be a document format. Even thest loosest of define xml file, are temendously easier to work with then a deliminted file with just an average XML DOM engine.


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## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

Fontano said:


> In your TSV Example, the system should be designed and setup properly for that type of storage solution (aka the proper block size, or a file structure system optimizes for tiny file sizes)


How many individuals do you know that maintain multiple volumes and multiple mount points in Windows? It is my understanding that mixing block sizes on a single volume is not possible in Windows.


> To your second point: And how does a proprietary data format file, going to make that any better?


It is the XML format that is apparently proprietary. There's nothing proprietary to the TSV format and it ports well to all platforms with a basic end-of-line conversion.


> You would still another tool to search, load (parse), and process those files.


All spreadsheets and most database programs already handle delimited files. Nothing new would be required.


> And you could make an argument that a properly defined XML file, with a program designed to work with it, could search faster then a start to finish brute force text search.


A non-linear text search isn't possible when the records are of variable length and you'll not convince me that a linear search is somehow slower than having to parse the entire file into a database and then search the database.


> Even thest loosest of define xml file, are temendously easier to work with then a deliminted file with just an average XML DOM engine.


The technology to search delimited files was built into DOS (find). No database parsers or special pre-search engines required and you could get a dump of all the data of all records that had the text in them.

The *nix awk and sed commands are very helpful for parsing tab delimited files. Nothing particularly proprietary there. Most worthwhile sort utilities can readily sort a delimited file but sorting an XML file requires parsing and a number of other steps.

Is there an "average XML DOM engine" built into Windows?


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## Zellio (Mar 8, 2009)

If there is a topic about Microsoft, expect Harsh finding some way to bash them :nono2:

Seriously, arguing over a few bloated bytes in Xml and trying to argue that it would exceed 2 tb? Harsh, are you even AWARE of how much bloat are in normal programs?

In all honesty, the average program today far exceeds your 'examples' in bloat.


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## Zellio (Mar 8, 2009)

Hum... I now see why your were complaining in the last topic. You want a completely bloat free OS, with bloat free programs. Well... Sad to say, but you will continue to complain forever Harsh, it isn't gonna happen.


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## kfcrosby (Dec 17, 2006)

I dunno, the more I read about this, Microsoft may just have a problem.

While on the surface this may look like just another Patent Troll case, i4i is a real company, selling XML-based collaborative solutions, primarily to pharmaceutical companies. Combine this with the patent's age and the existence of a real company producing real products makes this case look quite different.

Good Read:
http://www.betanews.com/joewilcox/a...or-or-victim-in-i4i-patent-dispute/1250119565


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## Fontano (Feb 7, 2008)

harsh said:


> How many individuals do you know that maintain multiple volumes and multiple mount points in Windows?


How many people that you know have a few million single block files?
(aka, your example from above).

And actually, MANY people have multiple mount points (drive letters).
Most computers have at least one spare SATA connector and power supply for another drive, and it just shows up as a second drive. Heck my grandmother was ble to install a second drive in her computer a few months back, as she was running out of space for all her pictures.

It isn't rocket science.



harsh said:


> It is my understanding that mixing block sizes on a single volume is not possible in Windows.


I think you are correct, you can't mix and match in the volume, but it is pretty easy to segment the drive into different partitions. And Since XP, you have been able to assign a volume to a directory name (hence no drive letter if you don't want it).



harsh said:


> It is the XML format that is apparently proprietary.


XML as a format isn't proprietary. The scheme, yes. Most schemes are made available to allow communication and collaboration.
Hence the power of the XML format. Microsofts OOXML isn't as open as I thought it was, but I do know they did submit it to be a standard format.



harsh said:


> There's nothing proprietary to the TSV format and it ports well to all platforms with a basic end-of-line conversion.All spreadsheets and most database programs already handle delimited files. Nothing new would be required.


I have been around computers for nearly 30 years now, and I admit I had to go and lookup up the acronym TSV to make sure I was correct in my understanding of it. Everything you said is true about the format. It prots well to many platforms, as it is just a TEXT file that is fixed with.



harsh said:


> A non-linear text search isn't possible when the records are of variable length and you'll not convince me that a linear search is somehow slower than having to parse the entire file into a database and then search the database.The technology to search delimited files was built into DOS (find). No database parsers or special pre-search engines required and you could get a dump of all the data of all records that had the text in them.


Theer are always ways to build a search engine that will work with one format, better then another format. If straight up text searching was so quick, we wouldn't need all the different searching algortithms that have been developed over the many decades.



harsh said:


> The *nix awk and sed commands are very helpful for parsing tab delimited files. Nothing particularly proprietary there. Most worthwhile sort utilities can readily sort a delimited file but sorting an XML file requires parsing and a number of other steps.


Hey grandma, I don't know which file you are using, but just nix/awk/sed your system and these files and I think you find it. Again, you are talking about something that some highly experienced tech people don't even know about. This conversation is about Microsoft Word, and their usage of XML. Which needs to stay in the context of the guy next door.

They will be using provided tools (probably GUI based) to do their searches and finds. How it works underneath would obviously be optimized for the format that is used.



harsh said:


> Is there an "average XML DOM engine" built into Windows?


Yes, there is. Pretty straight forward to use for programs, to build the tools for the common user. .NET framework, System.XML and even the older MSXML wasn't horrible either.


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## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

Fontano said:


> Yes, there is. Pretty straight forward to use for programs, to build the tools for the common user. .NET framework, System.XML and even the older MSXML wasn't horrible either.


I was thinking more along the lines of something that a casual user might employ to cobble something together. You know -- something you could do with the tools that you have without having to write or commission a GUI application.

I understand now that the suit is really more about how Microsoft used XML and not XML itself. This is clearly a much more serious issue than I thought. I still believe that it can be simply worked around by disabling the new "open" (.DOCX) formats (something that a policy editor should be able to fix), but that may create a problem with Sharepoint Servers that I'm not familiar enough with to contemplate.


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## Fontano (Feb 7, 2008)

harsh said:


> I was thinking more along the lines of something that a casual user might employ to cobble something together. You know -- something you could do with the tools that you have without having to write or commission a GUI application.


Yes, I will agree that in that context straight forward text searching is the easiest of all things to use. But with the ease of the internet to get tools and utilites downloaded, even the most complex of things a simple tool can be obtained.



harsh said:


> I understand now that the suit is really more about how Microsoft used XML and not XML itself. This is clearly a much more serious issue than I thought. I still believe that it can be simply worked around by disabling the new "open" (.DOCX) formats (something that a policy editor should be able to fix), but that may create a problem with Sharepoint Servers that I'm not familiar enough with to contemplate.


Yes, I read that too, but I don't really don't understand how something like that can be pantenable. XML is an open defined format. Entities are allowed to define their schemes (that is the foundation of XML communication). Is there something else to the way that Microsoft is using XML that I am missing?


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## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

It would appear that they tried to implement some sort of flexible data structuring scheme. I suspect that the problem relates to a work-around for a shortcoming of XML that I noted above; that it lacks support for data types and/or communicating special conditions/conventions under which the file was constructed.

As for what XML has to do with it, you can be sued for using letters of the alphabet in the wrong combination, so XML is really just a character set here and how Microsoft implemented extending its usefulness would appear to be patented by someone else.


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## Zellio (Mar 8, 2009)

Eh, in the end it's a canadian company who filing a patent lawsuit in Tyler, Texas. They could've easily picked any other place to file the lawsuit, but they choose the easiest location to win.

I doubt they are legit giving that.


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## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

Zellio said:


> Eh, in the end it's a canadian company who filing a patent lawsuit in Tyler, Texas. They could've easily picked any other place to file the lawsuit, but they choose the easiest location to win.


Why would _anyone_ choose a "tougher" venue?


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## Zellio (Mar 8, 2009)

harsh said:


> Why would _anyone_ choose a "tougher" venue?


I think the real question is why would a legitimate company, esp. one from canada, pick an area where patent trolls get what they want?


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## kfcrosby (Dec 17, 2006)

I read that i4i's Chairman Loudon Owen says he isn't looking to kill Word or start a legal war with Microsoft. He says the injunction is all about his company getting its fair share of the profits on a technology it developed. He stated, _"We're not seeking to stop Microsoft's business and we're not seeking to interfere with all the users of Word out there. The injunction is not saying there is no more Word for the world. That is not our intention and that would not be a sensible remedy."_


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## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

Zellio said:


> I think the real question is why would a legitimate company, esp. one from canada, pick an area where patent trolls get what they want?


Because Microsoft, a U.S. company, is accused of breaking their patent. That and the obvious advantage that it brings. Why should the go anywhere else?


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## LarryFlowers (Sep 22, 2006)

Microsoft has won a stay against the injunction issued by a Federal Judge that barred sales of Microsoft Word.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit granted the stay, pending appeal.

Word marches on.....

Larry


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