Microsoft Can Keep Shipping Word, Court Says

If for some reason you’re caught without a copy of Microsoft Word, and worried that Microsoft’s ongoing patent battle will leave you out in the cold, worry not: A federal appeals court has granted a stay of an injunction that would’ve stopped the production of Word, after a lower court judge said Microsoft had to stop selling the software. The lawsuit against Microsoft from Toronto-based i4i involves a feature called XML, which lets users manage word processing document information from a database. Though the feature is relatively obscure, all versions of Word that used it were blocked from sale when a judge said Microsoft infringed i4i’s patent. Like the appeal from Microsoft, this stay of injunction is no surprise. [via PC Magazine]