For infringing the patent law in its well-known word processor, the company may not sell more Word 2003 and 2007.

[img] Sans] In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court of the United States upheld a verdict of an appeals court by which Microsoft will pay 290 million Dolarea the firm "i4i", a small Canadian company dedicated to computer programming, for violating patent laws. Furthermore it can not sell more than 2003 and 2007 versions of Word.

The company, based in Toronto, sued Microsoft in 2007, accusing the boys led by Steve Ballmer to infringe a patent. It was an optimized method to edit the XML in the famous text appointment process.

The winners of the trial did not hide his euphoria about the ruling. Loudon Owen, Chairman of the applicant, described the ruling as "one of the most important decisions in commercial law of the United States Supreme Court in decades"

For its part, Microsoft, were not all happy, said that "Although this decision is not satisfactory, continue to advocate for change in the law to prevent abuses in the system for granting patents and protecting inventors whose patents representing real innovation "