It took me a while to write this post, because I just couldn't stop laughing!

The Eastern District of Texas Court has been growing more and more popular of late for cases involving patent claims. A thus-far unique set of circumstances not only allow for lawyers admitted to any state bar (not just that of Texas), but also speed discovery processes that seem designed to keep defendants off balance. To be a bit fair-minded, the E.D.Tex. has been accused of bias towards the plaintiffs in their patent cases in the past.

Microsoft has won and lost many times in the past in this very court, but this is a most exciting loss in my opinion; Microsoft has been permanently barred from selling any product that can open .xml, .docx, or .docm files that contain custom XML.

Forget the $290 million for a second. This is perhaps one of the greatest injunctions ordered against the software giant since their loss in Europe. For decades this company has been slapping the average programmer in the face with their attitudes and lawsuits and this is just too precious a moment to let fly by.

So XML isn't the wonder-child that it was three or four years ago, the importance of the mark-up language is still an integral part of the Internet... wait a second! Does this impact Internet Explorer? It must! HAHAHAHA! Now I've gotta go think about this for a while.

Read the original Reuters article after the jump...