WASHINGTON - A US federal court on Tuesday barred software giant Microsoft Corp from selling its popular Word processing application after the company allegedly infringed on a patent of Toronto-based software firm i4i Ltd.

US District Court judge Leonard Davis ruled on Tuesday that Word violates an XML patent held by i4i and ordered Microsoft to pay more than $290 million in damages and interest.  He also issued an injunction, which takes effect in 60 days, that would bar Microsoft from selling Word products that include the patented technology.

A Microsoft spokesperson, Kevin Kutz, said the Redmond, Washington-based company planned to appeal.

"We are disappointed by the court’s ruling," Kutz said in a statement. "We believe the evidence clearly demonstrated that we do not infringe and that the i4i patent is invalid.

"We will appeal the verdict."

Microsoft was accused by i4i of infringing on a 1998 XML patent in its Word 2003 and Word 2007 programs.

Word uses the XML language to open .XML, .DOCX, and .DOCM files.

Michel Vulpe, i4i's founder and an inventor of the patent, said the company "will do its utmost to support custom XML users, which is particularly important to implement the ISO 29500 OOXML standard." With Agence France-Presse, Reuters