In its Tuesday emergency motion filed with the US Court of Appeals, Microsoft, as expected, has sought a stay of the last week injunction by the US District Court of Eastern Texas, whereby the software maker has been barred from selling its Word 2003 and Word 2007 in the US after October 10.

The injunction had come after the court found that Microsoft had violated an XML patent held by the Toronto, Canada-based i4i. Along with the injunction, the court had also asked Microsoft to pay $290 million to i4i in damages for the “willful infringement” of the patent.

Saying that the compliance with the court ruling would spell “irreparable harm” and “massive disruptions” to the sales of Office, Microsoft’s appeal went thus: “Microsoft and its distributors – retailers like Best Buy, and OEMs like HP and Dell - face the imminent possibility of a massive disruption in their sales. If left undisturbed, the district court's injunction will inflict irreparable harm on Microsoft by potentially keeping the centerpiece of its product line out of the market for months.”

According to Microsoft’s lawyers, even if Microsoft is eventually successful in its appeal, the company would still have suffered massively on account of factors like – expenses involved in the redesign and redistribution of Word; the significant loss of Word and Office sales during the ban period; and goodwill impairment.