Microsoft Word and Office Found to Infringe on US Patent
Microsoft has notified Vanderbilt that on December 22, 2009, a United States court of appeals ruled that Microsoft must stop selling versions of Word and Office that infringe on a United States patent. The injunction only applies to licenses purchased after January 10, 2010.
The ITS Software Store is in the process of downloading updated Word 2003, Word 2007, Office 2003 and Office 2007 products which remove the disputed custom XML tagging functionality. To learn more about the removed features, please see Microsoft’s Knowledge Base article 978951 at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/978951.
The Software Store will replace the infringing products with the updated versions this week. We will send a follow up communication as soon as the replacement has been completed. The replacement is expected to be completed by January 6th.
Microsoft has notified us that all deployment that occurs after January 10, 2010 must use the updated software unless the licenses were purchased prior to January 11, 2010. For example, Vanderbilt desktop support staff who have made copies of the infringing versions for use in “post 1/10/10” deployments must replace their copies with the updated versions if the deployed software will be purchased after January 10, 2010. Support staff will automatically gain access to the updated versions when they install from the downloads associated with orders placed after January 10, 2010. Support staff may access the downloads by logging into the Store, clicking on My Software, and then clicking on the invoice number for the order.
Purchases made prior to January 11, 2010 are not affected even if the software has not been deployed yet.
Word and Office 2010 beta users do not need to take action regarding this notice.
Please contact software.store@vanderbilt.edu if you have questions.