Computing giant Microsoft is no longer able to sell its flagship writing program Word in the US after it lost a major court battle in the country.

A successful legal action led by software developers i4i stopped the word processor in its tracks due to its use of intellectual property in a number of its products.

Microsoft were found to have infringed patent number 5,787,499 filed in 1998, which allows consumers to read XML programming language so they can customise document formats - something the organisation embedded into Microsoft Word.

The world's leading operating system provider now has 60 days to withdraw all traces of Word from shelves across the country, though it is expected to launch a major appeal to prevent this action from ever happening.

Earlier this week, Microsoft announced that it had brought 11 companies to justice over the illegal sale of pirate copies of its products.

More than half of small businesses (53 per cent) believe that the most important benefit of outsourcing is guaranteed response times for IT support. London-based Connect conducted the research in 2007.