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The U.S. Appeals Court for the Federal Circuit says Microsoft Corp. can keep selling its Word desktop software as it appeals an unfavorable patent ruling.

In May, a Texas district court said some versions of Microsoft’s word processing software infringe on a Canadian technology company’s patent. The dispute is over the way Word 2003 and Word 2007 let users customize document encoding.

The Texas judge had ordered Microsoft to pay Toronto-based i4i LLP $290 million and stop selling infringing versions of Word by the middle of October.

Redmond-based Microsoft has appealed the ruling and is set to present arguments on Sept. 23.

AT&T, everyone’s favorite phone company to hate lately, has finally set the date for MMS availability on the iPhone. Multimedia messaging will debut for U.S.-based iPhone 3G and 3GS users on September 25, AT&T says. All you’ll have to do is download a software update, and you’ll be in business.

While some are sure to start doing the samba in excitement, I have to respond with a sarcasm-soaked, upward-inflection-ending: “Yay?” The reason for my subdued nature (aside from my general surliness toward phone-related salivation): Sure, MMS functionality is something iPhone users have been clamoring to get for ages. But it’s also something that should have been introduced — well, ages ago.

AT&T and iPhone MMS

Even if you accept that the iPhone operating system didn’t, for whatever reason, support the seemingly basic function of MMS until this June’s 3.0 release, that’s still a solid three-and-a-half months AT&T’s been dragging its feet on making the service available. Back in June, AT&T said the “finalizing [of] internal system upgrades” was causing the hold-up. Elaborating a bit more, the company now explains the delay this way:

“The unique capabilities and high usage of the iPhone’s multimedia capabilities required us to work on our network MMS architecture to carry the expected record volumes of MMS traffic and ensure an excellent experience from Day One.”

(Side note: The first-letter capitalization of “Day One” appears to suggest 9/25 will be some sort of holy, proper-noun-worthy holiday. As such, I’ll be taking the day off.)

Whether you buy AT&T’s explanation or favor the slightly less PR-friendly alternative offered by The New York Times, one thing is clear: Something as simple as multimedia messaging should have been available long ago, and its overdue arrival isn’t exactly cause for celebration.

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