A U.S. District Court in Texas has prohibited Microsoft Inc. from selling its document program Word that contains XML technology, which belongs to a Canadian company.

Judge Leonard Davis also ordered the software giant to pay Toronto-based i4i Inc., owner of the XML language, $290 million in damages for using the patented technology that enables Microsoft Word to open files in XML, DOCX and DOCM formats.

Lawyers of Microsoft will appeal the ruling disallowing the firm from selling Word during the 60-day injunction issued Tuesday.

i4i had accused Microsoft of infringing its XML patent obtained in 1998. It sued Microsoft in March 2007.