Posts Tagged: "US Patent No. 5787449"

Hungar would go on to say that the clear and convincing standard “makes no sense,” which nearly immediately drew the first comment from the bench with Justice Ginsburg saying that it would be difficult to say the standard makes no sense when it was supported by Justice Cardozo and Judge Rich. Ginsberg would later, in a nearly annoyed way, say “then you have to be saying that Judge Rich got it wrong…” Hungar cut off Justice Ginsburg, not typically a wise move.

At the end of December, we learned that Microsoft had petitioned the PTO Director to order reexamination of the ‘449, and this morning that petition has been released to the public. It shows that Microsoft’s chances at the Patent Office are not so long after all, that Microsoft’s argument for reexamination are stronger than many thought. The concerns about the “clear and convincing” standard being abandoned by the Supreme Court may not be justified – there is a real prospect that the Microsoft-i4i dispute could be resolved in the reexamination, without the need for the Supreme Court to reassess the burden of proof standard for accused infringers.

Earlier today the United States Supreme Court granted certiorari in Microsoft Corporation v. i4i Limited Partnership, with Chief Justice John Roberts taking no part in the decision or petition. This comes only days after the United States Patent and Trademark Office refused to grant reexamination of the patent in question. Given Microsoft doesn’t even have strong enough prior art to provoke a reexamination by the USPTO it seems absurd to think they could have been victorious even if the district court reviewed the patent claims de novo and without any presumption.

I don’t know why Microsoft didn’t present all the prior art in the Texas case sooner, and I can’t explain why they might have wanted to wait until after asking the Supreme Court to take the appeal before filing the most recent reexamination request. One thing is for certain though: Microsoft would be in a much better position at this point if it had filed the request a year ago. Had they filed the request sooner they might already be at advisory action stage now, which could have provided a stronger case for refusing to enjoin the defendant as was the case in Flexiteek Americas.

Earlier this week i4i Limited Partnership announced that the United States Patent and Trademark Office confirmed the patentability of all claims of the U.S. Patent 5,787,449. The ‘449 patent was being reexamined by the USPTO at the request of Microsoft after the Redmond giant lost close to $300 million as a result of infringement of the i4i patent. Microsoft was also ordered to stop selling Word or remove certain XML functionality. MS had put a lot of hope in reexamination, and now their options are running out. They are apparently contemplating an appeal to the US Supreme Court.