Three weeks ago, a U.S. District Court judge in Texas ordered Microsoft to stop selling the latest version of Microsoft Word, the world’s de facto text editor. Judge Leonard Davis declared that Word 2007 infringes on patent No. 5,787,449, which describes methods for reading .xml, .docx and .docm files. The patent is owned by i4i, a small Canadian company.
Critics of Davis’ injunction complained that Tyler, Texas, where Leonard presides, is the patent troll capital of North America. “Plaintiffs tend to win big judgments there, and the surrounding vicinity, against companies like Microsoft,” Betanews writer Joe Wilcox said at the time.
Today, the Seattle PI reports that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has granted Microsoft’s motion to stay the injunction.
Neither Microsoft nor i4i have responded to requests for comment yet. I’ll update this post if they do.
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