Patent suit

Toronto-based technology provider i4i has been granted a permanent injunction against software giant Microsoft and won total damages and interest of more than $290m (£175m) in a Texas patent-infringement lawsuit.

The injunction was signed by Judge Leonard Davis of the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Tyler Division.

The ruling follows a 20 May 2009 verdict of $200m after jurors found that Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft wilfully infringed an i4i patent covering a document system that relies on the XML custom formatting function.

During the trial, attorneys successfully argued that Microsoft infringed an i4i patent issued in 1998 that covers software designed to manipulate 'document architecture and content'.

The software covered by the patent removed the need for individual, manually embedded command codes to control text formatting in electronic documents.