Wheels of Justice

A federal appeals court ordered Microsoft Corp. to stop selling its Word program in January and pay a Canadian software company $290 million for violating a patent, upholding the judgment of a lower court.

Microsoft said it has been preparing for such a judgment since August.  Copies of Word and Office sold before Jan. 11 aren’t affected by the court’s decision. And Microsoft said it has “put the wheels in motion to remove this feature” from versions of Word 2007 and Office 2007 that would be sold after that date.