Going by a recent statement from a federal appeals court in Washington, hearing in the Word patent infringement case, between Toronto, Canada-based i4i and Redmond, Washington-based software biggie Microsoft, has been scheduled for September 23.

The court decision implies that Microsoft has won a speedy hearing to its plea for a stay on the earlier order permanent injunction imposed by a Texas court, on selling of the Word software in the US with effect from October 10, 2009.

The ruling that Microsoft has appealed against prohibits the company from selling or importing to the US "any Microsoft Word products that have the capability of opening .XML, .DOCX or DOCM files containing custom XML." Microsoft had maintained that the ban would cause "irreparable harm" to the customers.

If the appeals court upholds the injunction, the sale of Word 2003 and Word 2007 will be banned, thought the current users of the software will remain unaffected. In addition, Microsoft will also have to drastically squeeze Word 2010, due for release next year.

However, those familiar with Microsoft opine that the company might work out a settlement with i4i, most probably before the date of the hearing. Reportedly, Microsoft has also already developed a patch for Word 2007, in an attempt to disable the Custom XML functionality and would roll out that patch, via Windows Update, if and when required!