That is the majority opinion around here, yes, but I contend that that opinion is flawed, precisely because of cases like i4i. It is a textbook case of a big guy ripping off a small guy, and patents being the only thing that helped the small guy.
The Wikipedia entry has surprisingly little backstory, so it turned out to be a poor choice on my part. But the gist is that like the Stac case, Microsoft was in active discussions to license or buy i4i's Office plugin before they turned around and, without warning, built it themselves into the next release of Word. Unlike the Stac, and indeed most, patent lawsuits, Microsoft was found guilty of willfull infringement.
I'm mostly a fan of Microsoft, and I don't really believe all the hate it gets is justified, but this is one case where it was really a bad actor.
The Wikipedia entry has surprisingly little backstory, so it turned out to be a poor choice on my part. But the gist is that like the Stac case, Microsoft was in active discussions to license or buy i4i's Office plugin before they turned around and, without warning, built it themselves into the next release of Word. Unlike the Stac, and indeed most, patent lawsuits, Microsoft was found guilty of willfull infringement.
I'm mostly a fan of Microsoft, and I don't really believe all the hate it gets is justified, but this is one case where it was really a bad actor.