Toronto Software Firm Beats Microsoft in Court

Tech giant loses $290-million verdict to Toronto's i4i Inc.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled against Microsoft Corporation in favour of Toronto's i4i Inc. Thursday, bringing an end to a four-year-long patent dispute. The top U.S. court's unanimous ruling upheld a record $290-million jury verdict awarded to the Canadian software company by a lower court in Texas in 2009. It is the single biggest patent-dispute loss for Microsoft, which continues to insist it did nothing wrong in the patent-infringement case. i4i first sued Microsoft back in 2007, claiming the corporation had infringed upon its U.S. patent for XML computer programming language when it created its Word 2003 and 2007 programs.