A Texas jury has ordered Microsoft cough up $200 million dollars to a Canadian company for patent infringement.

I4i took Microsoft to the cleaners after it violated a patent held by her company in its Word processing programs. Karen Heater, president of the Canadian based outfit,  said she was very pleased with the result.

Microsoft said it planned to appeal the verdict handed down by the jury in a US District Court in Tyler, Texas. A Microsoft spokesman moaned that his outfit clearly told the jury that Redmond did not infringe and that the i4i patent is invalid.  He said the award of damages is legally and factually unsupported. The thought that a jury might disagree with its cunningly worded arguments is apparently grounds for an appeal.

Redmond is not having a lot of luck with its patent cases lately. Last month a federal jury ordered Microsoft to write a cheque for $388 million to Uniloc, for infringing on an anti-piracy software patent held by the Singapore and US-based outfit.