IT Company Microsoft has been ordered to strip custom XML support from its popular Microsoft Word 2007 software package after a federal appeals court injunction.

The injunction stems from a patent infringement lawsuit filed by the small Canadian IT Company i4i in 2007. The suit claims i4i owns the custom XML editing technology that is included in Software Package Microsoft Word.

The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas agreed, slapping IT Company Microsoft with a $290 million fine and ordering it to remove custom XML capabilities or stop selling the infringing software.

IT Software giant Microsoft appealed, but the lower court’s ruling was upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals. And now the software giant has precious little time to re-release Word and Office 2007 before being barred from selling the profitable office software.