TORONTO — Microsoft Corp. was ordered by a U.S. court Wednesday to pay Canadian software company i4i Limited Partnership US$200 million for infringing on a patent over the way its popular Microsoft Word program handles documents.

Douglas Cawley, a lawyer for i4i, said that the company will now seek an injunction preventing Microsoft from continuing its infringement on the patent.

The jury in the case before the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas found Microsoft "wilfully infringed" on i4i's patent.

Cawley said that means the judge could triple the damages.

Cawley said the key to the case were Microsoft emails showing the company knew about i4i's patent.

Microsoft spokesman David Bowermaster said the company was disappointed by the verdict.

"We believe the evidence clearly demonstrated that we do not infringe and that the i4i patent is invalid," Bowermaster said in a statement.

"We believe this award of damages is legally and factually unsupported, so we will ask the court to overturn the verdict."

Toronto-based i4i LLP sued the world's largest software maker last year over the way Word 2003 and Word 2007 customize XML, or "extensible markup language," which is used in encoding and displaying information.

Last month, Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft reported a quarterly profit of $2.98 billion, or 33 cents per share, for the three months ended March 31 compared with a profit of $4.39 billion, or 47 cents per share in the same quarter in 2008.

Revenue in the last quarter slipped six per cent to $13.6 billion.

Microsoft shares closed up seven cents at $20.38 on the Nasdaq market.