Washington/Toronto, Aug 13 - A US judge has ordered Microsoft to stop selling its popular Word document creation application in the country in 60 days after finding that the software contains technology that violates a patent held by a third party.

Microsoft Office, which includes Word, accounted for more than $3 billion in worldwide sales in Microsoft's most recent fiscal year and is used by literally millions of businesses and consumers for everyday tasks like word processing and making spreadsheets and presentations.

I4i, a Toronto-based software maker, has been battling Microsoft over an obscure patent related to XML or Extensible Markup Language. XML is a key software component of many websites as well as Word and other programs.

Upholding a a May 20 jury decision Tuesday, Leonard Davis, a federal district court judge in Tyler, Texas, banned the world's largest software from selling Word 2003 , WWord 2007 and future versions of the software that use i4i's technology without a licence.

The judge also ordered Microsoft to pay several hefty fines to i4i, including $200 million in damages and $40 million in 'enhanced damages'.

'We feel vindicated with this reuslt,' said Michael Vulpe, who co-founded i4i in 1993.

'It is not a question of fear or pride or anything else,' said Loudon Owen, chairman of i4i.