Microsoft wins right to sell Word

Given the things that have been granted, no-one can ever be sure they aren't infringing a software patent. As an example, any piece of software implementing markdown would almost certainly infringe this same patent. Google's web spider and search engine would probably be found to infringe this patent.

Microsoft is unpopular and often the 'Bad Guy' in these situations. And i4i isn't your everyday patent troll.

But this is a bad patent. It's an excellent example of how the process for granting software and process patents is deeply flawed and in need of review and reform.

Software patents are very open to interpretation.

I mean, come on, a patent on using XML for defining a document? That is pretty broad. i4i likely chose Microsoft because they're a big target with a big wallet. They could just as easily chose to go after the authors of the OpenDocument spec, but likely wouldn't get anything.