LONDON: Microsoft has been ordered to stop selling certain versions of its Word programme after a US court ruled it had infringed a patent held by a Canadian software company.
The information technology major was ordered to pay $290m (£180m) in damages to Toronto-based i4i Inc and told it will not be able to sell any more copies of Word 2007 unless alterations are made to the programme over the next three weeks.
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld an earlier jury verdict and lower court ruling in the patent case filed nearly three years ago. The case was brought over Microsoft's use of XML, or extensible markup language, in the 2007 versions of its word processor.
Microsoft said the injunction only referred to US sales of versions of Microsoft Word 2007 and Microsoft Office 2007 and said it had already "put the wheels in motion to remove this little-used feature from these products". It added that it was now "considering legal options".
Michel Vulpe, founder of i4i, said: "This ruling is clear and convincing evidence that our case was just and right..
"We are vindicated and we're appreciative but we're not surprised because we believed from the outset that we had a great case and that the trial judge made the right decision."
The Daily Telegraph