Anyone know the specifics on what patent violation entails?
First of all, i4i is not a patent troll, they are a document management company that actively deploys the technology on which they have a patent. One notable case of such is that they used it to overhaul the USPTO's own internal database.
Microsoft came to i4i and contracted them to help them move Word over to an XML format. They then tried to strong arm i4i into some licensing agreement which they did not accept so Microsoft just decided to willfully infringe. This means they decided they would just ignore the patent and use i4i's patented technology anyway without paying them. Essentially, they stole i4i's work when they refused to sell on Microsoft's terms.
More of the backstory in this article: http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2009/09/i4i-says-micro...
But their patent is still crap.
The first claim of the '449 patent covers essentially any code that maps external XML data into a document. There is simply too much existing art in the file manipulation and database domains for this to be anything but obvious.
No, the law is broken. What were they supposed to do, sit idle while someone else got the patent instead?
"Custom editing xml files." Microsoft is barred from selling versions of word that can open and edit .docx or .xml files.