Microsoft Beats Patent Suit Over ‘Bling FIRE Tokenizer,’ for Now

Microsoft Corp. shook off claims that its Bling FIRE Tokenizer used in its Bing search engine infringes patents that use artificial intelligence to reformat text documents for optimal spacing and readability.

The complaint brought by Language Technologies Inc. alleged that Microsoft is violating patent No. 7,346,489 for a “System and Method of Determining Phrasing in Text” and patent No. 7,069,508, used for “System and Method for Formatting Text According to Linguistic, Visual and Psychological Variables.”

The suit fails because the patents are “directed to the abstract concept of using ‘key words’ and punctuation to define and identify phrases in ...