A U.S. federal appeal court Tuesday ordered Microsoft Corp. to pay 290 million U.S. dollars for infringing a patent belonging to a Canadian software company, upholding the decision of a lower court.

The soft giant lost the patent case with Toronto-based i4i Inc. in May, after a jury ruled that Microsoft infringed one of i4i's patents with a custom XML feature found in Word.

On Aug. 12, a U.S. District Court judge in Texas upheld both the jury ruling and the award of more than 290 million dollars in damages and interest.

"We couldn't be more pleased with the ruling from the appeals court which upheld the lower court's decision in its entirety. This is both a vindication for i4i and a war cry for talented inventors whose patents are infringed," said Loudon Owen, chairman of i4i, in a statement.

"This ruling is clear and convincing evidence that our case was just and right, and that Microsoft willfully infringed our patent," he added.

An injunction that was issued previously banned Microsoft from selling versions of its word processing program Word that infringe on the patented technology.

The injunction will take effect on Jan. 11, 2010, and Microsoft Tuesday said in a statement that the company was "moving quickly" to comply with it.

But Microsoft stressed that the injunction only refers to U.S. sales of versions of Microsoft Word 2007 and Microsoft Office 2007, and said it has already "put the wheels in motion to remove this little-used feature from these products."

Microsoft also indicated it may file further appeals in Tuesday's statement.

(Source: Xinhua)