Canadian software company i4i says it has cleared another hurdle in its lengthy patent battle against Microsoft Corp. MSFT-Q.Toronto-based i4i says the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has confirmed that its patent is valid.
Microsoft had asked the Washington-based agency to review the validity of i4i's patent, which is the focus of a multimillion-dollar dispute.
i4i chairman Loudon Owen says the decision means that his company's patent is valid.
However, it's unlikely that Microsoft will back out of the dispute until it has exhausted all of it legal options.
The patent infringement case involves some versions of Microsoft Word 2003 and Word 2007 that use i4i's technology to process electronic documents.
A Texas jury awarded a $290-million judgment to i4i, fining that Microsoft had willfully infringed the little-known Canadian company's patent.
Microsoft has appealed the jury's verdict but so far has made no headway, with a three-judge panel ruling in i4i's favour and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit denying a request for a review by the entire 12-judge panel.
Patent infringement cases are common in the tech world and can take years and millions of dollars to resolve.
Last August, a Texas jury that found that i4i patents were infringed upon by the way Microsoft's Word 2003 and Word 2007 customize XML, or extensible markup language, which is used in encoding and displaying information.
