The Eastern District of Texas on Tuesday found that Microsoft infringed on U.S. Patent 5,787,449, held by Michel Vulpe, the founder of a Canadian company called i4i over the architecture of Microsoft Word.

The company was also assessed $290 million in fines. Ultimately, if the corporation doesn’t make adjustments to the word processing tool, the company will no longer be allowed to sell it by October of this year.

Microsoft was found to have infringed on the “manipulation of the architecture and content of a document, particularly for data representation and transformations,” according to Judge Leonard Davis of the Eastern District of Texas. The Judge ruled that Microsoft could not sell Word 2003, 2007 or any future Word product that could potentially infringe on the patent. Microsoft must comply within 60 days.

The company that filed the suit, Ontario-based i4i won the judgment after an eight-day trial.

“We are very pleased with the terms of the Final Judgment,” said Vulpe in a statement. “The financial award due to i4i is now over $290 million and a Permanent Injunction has also been issued against Microsoft.”

Many look at this as a win for the small business owner and that suits against large conglomerates, like Microsoft, can be won when looked at objectively.

Patent law can be tricky. According to the U.S. patent website, “a patent for an invention is the grant of a property right to the inventor, issued by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Generally, the term of a new patent is 20 years from the date on which the application for the patent was filed in the United States or, in special cases, from the date an earlier related application was filed, subject to the payment of maintenance fees. U.S. patent grants are effective only within the United States, U.S. territories, and U.S. possessions. Under certain circumstances, patent term extensions or adjustments may be available.”

The U.S. Constitution gives Congress the power to enact laws relating to patents. In the language of the statute, any person who “invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent,” subject to the conditions and requirements of the law. The word “process” is defined by law as a process, act or method, and primarily includes industrial or technical processes.