Today, I saw the news that Microsoft can't sell Word any more. A Judge for the U.S. District Court of Eastern Texas ruled that Microsoft willfully infringed on a patent held by i4i, a small company in Toronto, Canada. Under this ruling, Microsoft would not be allowed to sell its current version of Word in the United States, and must pay damages of about $290 million. Yet, Microsoft's stock went up today.
Microsoft will certainly file appeals. It may take years to finalize this issue. Microsoft will certainly pay massive amounts of money, even if just for lawyers. But, they have been here before. They almost make a habit of this. And in the end, they will either work something out with i4i, or buy i4i, or make coding changes and move on. That's what I would do.
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