TORONTO - Microsoft has asked a U.S. appeals court to put an injunction to stop the sale of its popular Microsoft Word software in the United States on hold pending appeal.
The worlds largest software developer filed the emergency motion with U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit after a jury found the company violated a patent belonging to Toronto-based i4i LP.
In its filing with the court Tuesday, Microsoft said i4i was not entitled to the injunction.
"It is undisputed that i4i does not have a product that could fill the gap left in the market by the injunction; rather, i4i's products run as add-ons to Word," Microsoft wrote in its motion.
"The district court acknowledged the absence of future harm, but deemed it irrelevant focusing instead on harm that i4i allegedly suffered years ago."
Last week, Judge Leonard Davis of the U.S. District Court in Tyler, Texas., issued the injunction and ordered Microsoft to pay US$290 million to i4i for knowingly violating a patent with the Microsoft Word 2003 and Word 2007 word processing software
The injunction, which gave Microsoft 60 days to comply, prevents the company from using the patented technology in any of its current or future versions of Word.
Loudon Owen, chairman of i4i, said the appeal was fully expected given the significance of the case and the importance of Microsoft Word to the Microsoft.
"We firmly believe the jury verdict and judgment were both fair and correct and we have been vindicated through this process," Owen said in a statement.
Toronto-based i4i sued Microsoft last year over the way Word 2003 and Word 2007 customize XML, or "extensible markup language," which is used in encoding and displaying information.
The injunction prevents Microsoft from selling Word products that have the capability of opening an XML file containing custom XML.
The jury awarded US$200 million in damages in May but the judge had the authority to increase that amount and bar Microsoft from using the technology if he agreed that Microsoft had "wilfully" violated the patent.
