14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft has recently been awarded a new design patent that the company used to sue Corel, claiming the company benefited from its technology without authorization.
But let’s take one thing at a time.
First of all, the patent. The design patent, numbered D554,140, basically states that Microsoft is the owner of the slider you can see in the photo attached to the article. This is the very same slider that the company uses in its Office productivity suite to allow users to zoom in or out of documents, but it has also been implemented in a wide variety of Microsoft and non-Microsoft products.
Then, the consequences of using a patent without authorization. Microsoft has recently sued Corel, accusing the Canadian corporation of using its design patents without authorization. Redmond says that several applications such as Corel Write, Corel Calculate, and Corel Show violate nine different Microsoft patents, four of which are design patents and include the aforementioned slider, plus the ribbon.
But Microsoft’s lawsuit doesn’t come out of the blue. In fact, Microsoft’s lawsuit is a response to another lawsuit started by Corel in July and claiming that Redmond infringed several of its patents and that “WordPerfect has been reduced to minimal market share as a result of Microsoft’s aggressive actions.” In other words, Corel claims that its software failed to succeed because of Microsoft stealing their patents.
Fight fire with fire
As a result, Microsoft has decided to start its very own lawsuit against Corel, accusing the company of infringing on its patents. So basically, the two companies are accusing each other of the same thing, but Microsoft is more confident it’ll win.
“Microsoft's lawsuit is in direct response to the meritless claims made by Corel earlier this year in a Utah court. We are confident we will be successful,” a company spokesperson said earlier this month.
“Stupid patent of the month”
The Electronic Frontier Foundation called Microsoft’s new design patent “the stupid patent of the month” and explained that the company now uses it as a way to go after Corel and possibly other competitors.
“Putting aside whether Microsoft’s design was actually new and not obvious in 2006 (when Microsoft filed its application), whether Microsoft needed the patent incentive in order to come up with this design, and whether it is even desirable to grant a company a government-backed monopoly on a graphical slider (we don't think so, that's why this is a stupid patent), the scope of damages for design patent infringement has the potential to become a powerful tool to shut down legitimate competition based on the mere threat of a lawsuit,” EFF wrote.
Microsoft hasn’t yet issued a public comment on these allegations, but we’ve reached out to the company for a statement and will update the article when a response is offered.