Word Works Around the Court

Microsoft has just started offering something of a patch for its extremely popular Word software, allowing it to comply with the recent court ruling which banned the software giant from selling copyright infringing versions of the word processing product which contained a custom XML feature.

Kevin Kutz, Microsoft’s director of public affairs, said in a statement last week that the firm had been preparing for the injunction decision handed down by the US Court of Appeals for quite some time, and was prepared. Kutz also said that he expected to have copies of the software with the offending features removed available for sale by the official injunction date, january 11, 2010.

It now appears that this patch is available on Microsoft's OEM Partner Center Website, under the heading – “2007 Microsoft Office Supplement Release (October 2009)”. The patch works so that once it is installed, Word will no longer read the Custom XML elements contained within DOCX, DOCM, or XML files. Microsoft also notes, very importantly, that the patch is required for all US customers.

This creative workaround should put an end to a long-running dispute between Canadian i4i and Redmond, although Kutz has also hinted that this legal battle might yet take another turn, as the patch is indeed a workaroundCourtesy of itnews.com.au

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