Microsoft ordered to stop selling Word

BEIJING, August 13 (Xinhuanet) -- A federal court in the United States has ordered Microsoft to pay over 290 million U.S. dollars for wilfully infringing on a patent by Canadian firm i4i. The company has also been ordered to stop selling one of its major products, Microsoft Word.

Earlier this year, the court found in a jury trial that Microsoft had infringed a patent held by the Canadian firm and awarded i4i 200 million dollars. In the latest ruling, the court ordered Microsoft to pay a further 40 million dollars for the willful nature of the infringement and interest on the amounts totalling more than another 40 million dollars.

In a another injunction, the court also prohibited Microsoft from "selling, offering to sell, and/or importing in or into the United States" any version of the software that can open custom XML files (with file extensions .xml, .docx, or .docm). XML, or Extensible Mark-up Language, is a mark-up language that allows formatting of text and makes files readable across different programs. It is particularly integral to the company's flagship software Microsoft Word and is used extensively among other word-processing programs such as OpenOffice.

Microsoft has 60 days to comply with the injunction but has said it will appeal the ruling. "We are disappointed by the court's ruling," said Microsoft spokesperson Kevin Kutz. "We believe the evidence clearly demonstrated that we do not infringe and that the i4i patent is invalid. We will appeal the verdict."