A federal appeals court upheld a $200M judgement against Microsoft Corp. and issued an injunction that will stop the technology giant from selling some of its Word software until it is altered, the Associated Press reports.
The injunction will go into effect against the world’s biggest software maker on Jan. 11, the wire service reported in the past hour.
Microsoft had appealed a jury decision in favor of I4i LP, a Canadian company, that successfully argued recent editions of Microsoft Word had infringed on a patent, according to the AP.
However, the court ruled that the decision does not affect copies of the programs sold before the injunction goes into effect, the AP reported.
Word, which is part of the Office suite, is used by more than 500 million people, Bloomberg News reported.
As a result, Microsoft has argued that the injunction will not just only hurt the company but also the public, the AP reported.
However things might not be as bad for consumers as Microsoft may be making them out to be.
Bloomberg reported:
Copies of Word 2007 and Office 2007, with (a feature allowing for the customization of the markup language XML) removed, will be available for U.S. sale by Jan. 11, and “beta versions of Microsoft Word 2010 and Microsoft Office 2010, which are available now for downloading, don’t contain the technology covered by the injunction,” said company spokesman Kevin Kutz.
