Microsoft asked an appeals court for a rehearing in the patent case that requires the software giant to pay US$290 million in damages and prevents it from selling the current version of Word starting on Monday.

The suit charged Microsoft with using a patent owned by i4i in a feature in Word 2003 and 2007 that lets people create custom XML documents.

In December, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld an earlier judgment that left Microsoft with the damages and the injunction requiring it to stop selling copies of Word that include the feature.

More: http://pcworld.com/article/186443/