Remember what I said yesterday, about “patent infringement suits mak[ing] strange bedfellows?” It was in reference to the fact that Microsoft’s frequent competitors, Apple and Google (not to mention a slew of other folks like Walmart, and Toyota), had joined with the Redmond in its fight to lower the bar for the defense in patent cases.
Now you can add another surprising name to the list: The Electronic Frontier Foundation. The organization tasked with defending the rights of technology consumers is siding with Microsoft in its multi-million dollar battle against i4i.
The organization this week allied itself with the software giant, filing an amicus brief with the Supreme Court, alongside Public Knowledge, the Computer & Communications Industry Association, and the Apache Software Foundation.
According to the EFF, “the Federal Circuit’s requirement that an accused infringer prove patent invalidity by ‘clear and convincing’ evidence unfairly burdens patent defendants, especially in the free and open source software context.”
A court awarded i4i $290 million in its battle against Microsoft and also ordered Redmond to stop selling Word in its current form. Microsoft has already unsuccessfully attempted to appeal the ruling.
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