Microsoft versus i4i: Patent Trolling or Patent Infringement

There's a good article in eWeek, Patent Ruling Against Microsoft Hinges on Meaning of Custom XML, reviewing the patent infringement lawsuit between i4i and Microsoft.

Here's the kicker: Reading through the decision, it's almost as if both the jury and judge felt that the XML editor portion of Word was the only place where XML was being used (it's not) and that this is where the alleged metacode data structure was being created (doubtful; if there is one, it would be created elsewhere).

One of the problems I have with this lawsuit is that the process which was "patented" in 1994 had become commonplace five years later - without i4i doing anything to bring it into the market. It seems more and more to me like patent trolling to me.