Microsoft found itself ordered to stop selling current versions of Word, as well as pay millions in fines, to a small Canadian company, i4i, over an XML-related patent violation. However, Microsoft has both legal appeals and code-based workarounds that could prevent it from being damaged by the ruling. An analyst suggested that the relevance of i4i’s XML patent may prove short-lived.
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When a U.S. District Court judge in Texas ruled that Microsoft had violated an XML-related patent held by i4i, a small Canadian company, the verdict seemed to potentially threaten both Microsoft and the open-source community.

As part of the verdict, Microsoft was banned from “selling, offeri…