i4i

i4i has lost an appeal to the US supreme court over a $290m (£178m) award made against it in a patent dispute with the Canadian company i4i, which claimed a version of Microsoft Word infringed a patented method for editing documents.The decision means companies challenging patents being used in court battles will have to provide convincing proof that a patent is invalid if they want to have it set aside. Microsoft had sought to weaken the level of proof needed.i4i sued Microsoft in 2007, claiming infringement of a patent relating to XML in documents by Word 2007 (and products that included it, such as Office 2007). At a subsequent jury trial, Microsoft had argued the patent was invalid; the jury rejected that claim.

It then appealed to the supreme court, saying the trial court's requirements had put an "overly demanding" standard to its invalidity defence: it had had to prove its defence by "clear and convincing" evidence, rather than the more relaxed "preponderance of evidence". The difference would be similar to a criminal v civil standard of proof, between "beyond all reasonable doubt" and "balance of probability".The decision will have repercussions in cases where patents are the key element of the case – which will affect everyone from smartphone manufacturers to app developers.The question in the case (Microsoft Corp v i4i Limited Partnership, No. 10-290) was what Congress had meant on that point in the Patent Act of 1952. That only says that patents are "presumed valid" and "the burden of establishing invalidity" rests "on the party asserting such invalidity." That in itself doesn't say what level of proof is needed – and whether it is the criminal-like "beyond reasonable doubt" or the civil "balance of evidence" – whether one side or the other was more likely to be correct.In the adjudication, Justice Benjamin N Cardozo of the nine-member court wrote that patents' legitimacy was "not to be overthrown except by clear and cogent evidence".

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