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MS Word Banned

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http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Windows/Microsoft-Word-Banned-In-US-By-Texas-Court-823432/

This is seriously a major WTF moment for me. How can one ban the cornerstone of all document writing!
Quote
(from http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Windows/Microsoft-Word-Banned-In-US-By-Texas-Court-823432/)

A U.S. District Court in Texas has banned the sale and support of Microsoft Word in the United States, after a judge ruled that Microsoft had violated patents held by Canada-based technology company i4i....

"We are disappointed by the court's ruling," Kevin Kutz, a Microsoft spokesperson, said in a statement. "We believe the evidence clearly demonstrated that we do not infringe and that the i4i patent is invalid. We will appeal the verdict and the related injunction."

In May, jurors also ruled that Microsoft had infringed on U.S. Patent 5787499, issued to i4i in 1998, and leveled a $200 million verdict against the company. That original patent dealt with document and architecture content that relies on the XML custom formatting function.


The medium reported the wrong patent number. An internet search for "patent 5787499" suggests that 5787499 is a withdrawn patent number, implying that the patent office never issued US patent 5787499. I made an unsuccessful attempt to read US patent 5787499.

A comment on another website mentions US patent 5787449 (equals 5787499 minus 50). I found that US patent 5787449 does exist and belongs to "Infrastructures for Information Inc. (Toronto, CA)". Year 1994 filed the patent and year 1998 issued it.

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That is crazy. Who would knew something like this would happen?

What's next, the bannning of Vista because too many reports of it being evil? I lol'ed.

Edit: Jackpot of twos! 222

This is insane. Banning the program that you always use for writing documents or stories? Its insane. Who would do that....?
Finally decided to actully work on a hack. I haven't thought of a name for it yet, and I'm only done 45%.


It would be hilarious if all the prosecution papers were written with MS Word. That is all.
I lol'd. Why would one ban MS Word for it being able to open Custom XML and stuff?
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I'm predicting either one of two things will happen:

1. Microsoft gets the appeal.

2. Microsoft just makes future versions not compatible or something.

Still, the whole thing's pretty odd. I doubt the actual fine for damages will really hit them that hard, but not being able to continue MS Word with that feature would be pretty frustrating.
I'm beginning to think that that judge is either:

a. A Mac user

or

b. An OpenOffice user

or

c. Both a and b
I bet they dont see how stupid they really are.
Why would they ban MS Word because of the XML feature?
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Originally posted by Floating muncher
I bet they dont see how stupid they really are.
Why would they ban MS Word because of the XML feature?


Hey, the US goverment is tillions of dollars in debt, money has to come from somewhere.

I doubt that this will affect whether we can use Word or not (someone else will get money for it now, I think). Still, there's always good ol' Notepad.
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Originally posted by I8Strudel
I doubt that this will affect whether we can use Word or not (someone else will get money for it now, I think). Still, there's always good ol' Notepad.


Of course it won't affect you in 2 months, but it will affect those trying to buy the software in 60 days, a.k.a they can't (the keyword is that they're banning sales of Word)

You can't create .doc/.docx files properly in Notepad, and you sure as hell can't open them, either.

There's always, you know, the free alternative, though.
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What the f*ck!? Why are they doing this to us?! What's so wrong about MS Word supporting .xml files!!??
Microsoft Works is almost like Microsoft Word, but it doesn't support .xml (At least the word processor doesn't). I don't know if Microsoft Works has anything to do with i4i, so it could be an alternative.

I'm guessing (I'm probably going to be way off) that Microsoft would offer another program, that either supports MS Word documents without the XML features, or will offer two programs:
One that has it's own type of extension that is XML and the other stuff the MS Word has, and
One that converts MS Word documents to the program, and vice versa, although no one will probably use MS Word anymore.
But I could be completely wrong >.<.
waiting for SMWC2 to come out since 1995
Oh good. I hate MS Word. There are plenty of alternative options.
Originally posted by BZM
Of course it won't affect you in 2 months, but it will affect those trying to buy the software in 60 days, a.k.a they can't (the keyword is that they're banning sales of Word


Yeah, they're banning the sales of Word, not specifically the usage, so exsisting computers with Word in them should be fine, right? If not, I'm pretty sure there would be a bunch of warnings coming in or maybe there's some being prepared.

And then there is also Microsoft Works, which I remember from my old Windows 98 Compaq. It's pretty much the same as Word except without some of the fancy stuff like WordArt (and obviously won't support the same files). My best scenario is that Microsoft will start a free conversion site for .doc and .docx files and create a new version of Works/a new program altogether.
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Originally posted by Mission_316
It would be hilarious if all the prosecution papers were written with MS Word. That is all.

^Indeed^ I would die laughing! Then again...I almost wouldn't be surprised.

Some cases like this is just plain stupid.

What is this I don't even-*shot*


Originally posted by Rawk Hawk
I'm beginning to think that that judge is either:

a. A Mac user

or

b. An OpenOffice user

or

c. Both a and b


Or

d. An absolute moron.

This is just really
...
Funny, actually.


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/MKICK 4: Flantastic Puns
Wow... Am I happy that I live in Canada. Besides, there are alternatives to Microsoft Word, but all of the ones that I have used stink, especially Notepad (good for HTML), and Word Perfect, which is really crappy for me.

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Well... I'm glad I',m Canadian! For while there are other alternatives to Word (My second preference is Open office) Word is what I grew up with and has all my freaky words saved in it's dictionary so yeah. Long Live Word!
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Scientific genius!Ok, let me get this straight...

Texas, the state that wanted to be removed from the USA, is saying that they want to ban MS Word from the USA. Their reasons are rather illogical to me. They're ruling on an invalid patent. Way to go Texas.

If they (Microsoft) still end up smacked with the 20 million dollar fine, I'll know that America obviously doesn't like following it's own rules, and have more proof of which.
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