A Texas judge ruled that Microsoft Word’s XML systems violate patents owned by i4i Inc.

From seattlepi.com Blogs:

Judge Leonard Davis, of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, ordered a permanent injunction that “prohibits Microsoft from selling or importing to the United States any Microsoft Word products that have the capability of opening .XML, .DOCX or DOCM files (XML files) containing custom XML,” according to an announcement by the plaintiff, Toronto-based i4i Inc.

The injunction will go into effect in 60 days and will certainly throw a wrench in Microsoft’s money making machine.

Update 9/5/09: From Reuters:

The U.S. Court of Appeals has granted Microsoft Corp’s request to stay an injunction imposed by a federal court that would have halted sales of some versions of its popular Word application.