Citing advance planning, Microsoft says it will have modified versions of Office 2007 available for sale before the court-ordered deadline next month to remove a disputed feature. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Tuesday upheld a lower court’s ruling that the software giant violated the patent of Toronto-based i4i when it included custom XML technology in the 2003 and 2007 versions of Microsoft Word.
Microsoft Office, of which 2007 is the most recent version, is estimated to be worth some $3 billion in annual global sales for the company founded by Chairman Bill Gates. In addition to Word, it includes Excel, PowerPoint and Groove, a collaboration program.
“We have been preparing for this possibility since the district court issued its injunction,” last May, Microsoft spokesperson Kevin Kutz said. “Therefore, we expect to have copies of Microsoft Word 2007 and Office 2007 with this feature removed available for U.S. sale and distribution by the injunction date.”
That date is Jan. 11.
Kutz also said beta versions of Word 2010 already available for download do not include custom XML.
The custom XML feature enables Word to manipulate format and content separately, which can be used by some companies to incorporate company data and templates into documents.
In response to the ruling, Microsoft has made available on its OEM Partner Center a 12.9-megabyte Office OPK Master Download Kit patch, noting that it is now required for companies using the product in the United States, and optional for other customers.
It’s unclear who, if anyone, will enforce compliance with the court order among end users of the software.
But Microsoft said the patch will not affect most users.
“After this patch is installed, Word will no longer read the custom XML elements contained within DOCX, DOCM or XML files,” reads a Microsoft announcement on the Partner Center page….