Proceedings began in May 2007 when i4i claimed that the 2007 version of Microsoft Word (MS Word) and Microsoft Office (MS Office) infringed one of its patents. MS Word and Office violate the patent in the manner in which they allow a user to edit Extensible Markup Language (XML) - a set of rules that encode documents electronically.

In August, the District Court of Texas ruled in i4i's favour. Judge Leonard Davis, entered an injunction against Microsoft which stated that MS Word and Office 2007, unless changed, would have to be pulled off the shelves by January 11, 2010. In addition, Microsoft was to pay $290 million (Rs. 1,390 crore) as damages to i4i.

The order of the Texas District Court was challenged before the Court of Appeals in September. Microsoft temporarily steered clear of the injunction with a stay order from the court pending the result of the appeal. However the court yesterday ruled in favour of the Toronto based company, upholding the orders of the district court.

Samuel F. Baxter, Mike McKool, Douglas Crawley and Gordon White, Partners at McKool Smith were the lead attorneys for the Canadian company before the trial judge. Before the Court of Appeals, i4i and trial counsels, McKool Smith, turned to boutique IP firmFinnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner to handle the appeal. IP Litigation Partner, Donald Dunner, Trial Litigation Partners, Don O. Burley and Erik R. Puknys, and Appellate Patent Litigation Partner, Kara Stoll represented i4i in the appeal.

Microsoft was represented by Weil Gotshal & Manges, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP, along with Texas based Findlay Craft. Lead Attorney Mathew Powers led the team along with Partner Kevin Kudlac and Special Counsel Amber Rovner of Weil Gotshal. The Gibson team was lead by Partners, Matthew D. McGill and Minodora D. Vancea. The name partner of Findlay, Eric Findlay assisted the Weil Gotshal team.

The litigation also saw Dell and Hewlett Packard (HP) act as Amicus to assist the Court, since they are the largest distributors of the Microsoft Software in through their computers. Fish & Richarson's Partners, Indranil Mukerji and John Thornburgh advised both Dell and HP in filing the Amicus brief. Richard A. Samp and Daniel J. Popeo were the counsels for Washington Legal Foundation, who also acted as Amicus to the Court. 

One can expect Microsoft to either appeal to the Supreme Court or come to a settlement with i4i in the near future. For now, Microsoft is aiming to comply with the injunction by changing MS Word and MS Office and minimising possible losses as much as possible. A new version of Microsoft Office, the Office 2010 will be released early next year in any case- a 'safe' version which does not contain the infringing code.

The Judgement and a copy of all relevant documentation is available at i4i's website.