In four companies, at least one will have to update Microsoft Office due to the software developer losing a copyright lawsuit.
This is a ruling from the California Court related to a copyright case filed by Guatemalan inventor Carlos Armando Amado. As a result, Microsoft will have to pay $8.9 million to compensate for damages caused by infringing a patent that Amado invented while he was a recent graduate at Stanford. This patent was granted for software designed to create links between data spreadsheets across different Microsoft applications.
Last weekend, Microsoft sent emails notifying users in various businesses that they need to update their Office 2003 and Office XP versions. These updates are primarily aimed at changing how Microsoft Access interacts with Excel spreadsheets.
The content of Microsoft’s emails stated: “Recently, the court ruled that certain portions of the programming code in Microsoft Office Professional Edition 2003, Microsoft Office Access 2003, Microsoft Office XP Professional, and Microsoft Access 2002 infringed on a third-party software copyright. Therefore, Microsoft has decided to issue an amendment for these products, changing the portions of code that were deemed infringing.”
Microsoft recommends that users install the newly released Microsoft Office 2003 Service Pack 2, which debuted in the fall of 2005, and it will also release another patch for the Office XP suite. Users running MS Office versions that have not installed any related updates concerning this copyright lawsuit may continue to use them, but Microsoft encourages users to update as soon as possible.
This is the first time Microsoft has quickly implemented court rulings related to copyright lawsuits. Previously, Microsoft had never released any updates for its products due to legal reasons.
