The US Court of Appeals ordered Microsoft to drop support for editing Custom XML in Word, essentially stopping the company from selling current versions of one of its flagship products and affirming a $290 million patent infringement judgment . The injunction, goes into effect on January 11, 2010, and only bars the sale of Word 2007, and also affects all editions of Microsoft Office 2007, .
This injunction applies only to copies of Microsoft Word 2007 and Microsoft Office 2007 sold in the US on or after the injunction date of January 11, 2010,”meaning all copies of these products sold before this date (including Word 2003 and Word 2007) are not affected.
The injunction does not require changes to Word 2010, due for release in June 2010 because “the beta versions of Microsoft Word 2010 and Microsoft Office 2010, which are available for downloading, do not contain the technology covered by the injunction