MS ordered to stop selling 'Word'

[Asher]

There is a reason MicroSoft is a virtual monopoly. They've crushed every company they've come up against.

Like here, stealing someone else's technology.

I don't think you comprehend. This isn't stealing someone else's technology.

The company filed an incomprehensibly broad patent to something that is fairly frickin obvious. It took 5 years for the patent to be granted, and in the limbo between that MS applied for (and 8 months after this company's, was granted) a much more specific patent. Both patents were ruled valid, but according to this judgment this company's patent is a superset of MS'.

It's not about stealing technology. Unfortunately, this kind of **** is very common. Shotgun-style patent applications that cover anything and everything. Then you find out someone is "violating" the patent years later and demand the moon from companies, then settle it for hundreds of millions of dollars.

How can anyone support Microsoft?? And how can you guys say, if MS has been stealing software, then the patent laws -- which protect inventors and inventions -- must be scraped? Patents are so important, they're written into the Constitution!

Strongly suggest you figure out the basic meanings of the words you are using. As a lawyer, I shouldn't have to tell you this. Patent infringement is not the same as "stealing technology". I strongly suggest you look into the history of technology patent trolls. These are not people 'stealing technology', it's a tiny company trying to cash in.

Look at the video game scene. For years, all video game consoles came with vibration/rumble support: Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft all did it. It's not a very difficult concept, but apparently some tiny no-name company patented the idea in the 90s sometime and waited til the industry was worth many billions of dollars, then had a massive payday as all of the big players were forced to pay hundreds of millions of dollars for "stealing" their technology to add vibration devices to game controllers.

I've no problem with software & technology patents in general, just absurdly general patents (like this one).

[Asher]

I thought vaporware was proposed or promised software which the company never actually delivers. Like Duke Nuke'em 3D (or what ever it was called) which supposedly was just around the corner for a decade plus but never actually hit market.

Yes. Zkrib is talking out of his ass.

----

Anyway I'm skipping town for a while to go to my grandpa's funeral. I'll trash you guys more later.

[KrazyHorse]

Sorry to hear that. At least he lived a pretty long life (based on your age). My grandparents were all dead by my 21st birthday.

[BlackCat]

Yes. Zkrib is talking out of his ass.

----

Anyway I'm skipping town for a while to go to my grandpa's funeral. I'll trash you guys more later.

Hope it will be a good goodbye.

[Elok]

They can't *sell* it. Can they just give it away, like they do to schools to ensure that they'll have a perpetual monopoly?

[BlackCat]

No.

[Elok]

As a lawyer, I shouldn't have to tell you this.

As an English major, I wish to be the first to point out that this sentence is poorly constructed. Unless you got a law degree and didn't tell us.

Yay! I'm contributing to the thread.

[Elok]

No.

Good. While, AFAIK, Asher could be right (probably is) about the patent violation being spurious, I can't feel sorry for Microsoft.

[Wiglaf]

Asher, you are not a lawyer. Think of a patent like a penis. Do you want other people using your penis without your permission?

[onodera]

They should sue Open Office.org next. They use XML-based documents too. Is it Oracle they have to sue?

[Q Classic]

Like here, stealing someone else's technology. Like in Korea, but buying out and then trashing a rival wordprocessing software company.

Do you mean Haansoft? It's still around, independent of Microsoft, and their Hangul writer is still widely used...

[DaShi]

I'm glad. I downloaded the trial Office 2007 for my netbook and everything was locked immediately! 60 days, my glorious white ass!

[Straybow]

Office 2007 is the worst piece of shyte I've had to work with in a long time. My company paid money to replace the bundled 2007 suite with a reliable Office 2003 suite.

We have Excel 2003 created workbooks with sheets that were created under 2007 that behave as they please. Cells that reformat themselves spontaneously are maddening; you have to specify a justification or it just chooses one it likes.

And then there's Word. In any version it's a pill to work with their stylesheets, creating new styles when you accidentally hit Ctrl-B instead of Ctrl-V, for example. Word 2007 does some things I really can't be bothered to figure out. On the laptop that still hasn't been retrofitted back to 2003 I use WordPad.

[Asher]

Some people just aren't cut out to use computers.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Seriously.

Word 2007 is superior to Word 2003 in every way.