December 22, 2009 - The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC), which hears appeals in patent cases, has upheld the ruling of a lower court that placed a ban on sales of Microsoft's Word program and set the injunction to begin on January 11.
In August, a Texas jury found that Microsoft Word contains code that infringes a patent belonging to Canadian firm i4i Inc. In addition to an injunction against sales of Word, Microsoft was also ordered to pay i4i past damages in the amount of $290 million.
The ban does not affect copies of Word and Office sold before the January 11 deadline, and copies of the software sold after that date will not include the patented code.