Microsoft Not to Sell Office & Word 2007 After January 11, 2010

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The inevitable has happened! Microsoft has lost its appeal against i4i, a Canadian company that holds the patent over some XML code that has been used by Redmond in the creation of Word 2007 and Office 2007.

Microsoft is therefore forced to pay i4i a $290 million fine and, like that’s not enough, the company will have to pull both Word 2007 and Office 2007 from stores by January 11, 2010. There’s nothing like some bad news just before Christmas, is it? Are you worried about the future of your docs? Well you shouldn’t be! After all this isn’t really bad news. i4i is getting what it deserves and so is Microsoft. Redmond is also working on different Word 2007 and Office 2007 versions that should be available in stores by January 2011.

The injunction only applies to copies of Word 2007 and Office 2007 sold in the U.S. “on or after the injunction of January 11, 2010”. Worldwide customers or U.S. consumers that purchesd them prior to that date should have no problem using their copies.

Everyone else could either get the new version of Word 2007 and Office 2007 or wait for Microsoft Word 2010 and Microsoft Office 2010 to arrive. The current beta version of those programs and the final versions will not contain the “technology covered by the injunction.”

In other words your documents are not in danger and you won’t have to switch to a different word editor. Microsoft will still provide its famous text editing solutions to its customers even after January 11, 2010 so, as you can see, the only real issue here is that Redmond will have to pay that $290 million to i4i. On the other hand I bet that i4i will have an even merrier Christmas this year and they definitely should.

Microsoft is also considering requesting a “rehearing by the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals en banc or a request a writ of certiorari from the U.S. Supreme Court” but we’ll tell you all about it once that happens.