Microsoft has warned of "massive disruptions" to sales of Office, as well as to partners such as Best Buy, Dell and Hewlett-Packard, if the injunction that prevents it from selling Word 2003 and Word 2007 is not dumped.

In an emergency motion filed with the US Court of Appeals, Microsoft asked that the injunction imposed last week by U.S. District Court Judge Leonard Davis be stayed, or temporarily put on hold. Redmond's court action was expected, as it had previously said it would appeal the verdict and the injunction that resulted from a patent infringement case it lost last May.

In the motion Microsoft argued that it and its distributors, which include retailers such as Best Buy and OEMs such as 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 centrepiece of its product line out of the market for months," the firm's lawyers added. "The injunction would block not only the distribution of Word, but also of the entire Office suite, which contains Word and other popular programs."

The patent infringement case was bought by i4i in 2007 resulted in a $290 million judgement against Microsoft and an injunction that bars it from selling Word 2003 and Word 2007 after October 10. During the trial, Microsoft said it would take five months for it to craft new versions of Word that omitted the offending feature. i4i countered, it could be done much faster than that.

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