South Korea is slowly transforming into a new Europe for Microsoft, as legal hassles are concerned. A new ruling by the South Korean Supreme Court the past Friday may put local office sales at risk, although Microsoft is disputing such a possibility.

Hankuk Aviation University professor Lee Keung-Haie has obtained in 1997 a patent for technologies integrated into Office in regard to the automated input mode switching between the Korean and English languages. In 2000, Keung-Haie and his legal agent P and IB have debuted legal actions against the Redmond Company for patent infringement.

Keung-Haie is looking to get no less than 75 million dollars from Microsoft and for the Redmond Company not only to halt sales of Office but also for the products to be retired from the shelves. Microsoft counteracted by filling a lawsuit demanding that Keung-Haie's patent be nullified. The past week the South Korean Supreme Court has refused Microsoft's request.

"The decision on Friday will strengthen our position in a fight to win the pending damages suit," P and IB head Kim Kil-Hae said. "Microsoft has used our technologies without paying software royalties to our side. Microsft should stop selling its Office suite incorporating the language-switch solution and accept our demand for compensation."

But Microsoft is not a company that will go down without a fight. In fact, the Redmond Company has opened another legal battle front. "We already filed another lawsuit last week with new evidence showing the related technologies are nothing new and contained in old papers," its Korean lawyer Chung Jae-Hoon said.