It's been a tough stretch lately for Microsoft in patent litigation. Most recently, an east Texas jury ruled yesterday that Microsoft had willfully infringed on a patent used for important features of Microsoft Word 2003 and 2007, in the process awarding $200 million to Canadian software maker i4i. As The Wall Street Journal's tech industry blogger John Paczkowski and others point out, the verdict is the second-largest to date in 2009, and Microsoft also is on the hook for the year's top IP infringement verdict - a $388 million award to Uniloc relating to security technology.

Meanwhile, McKool Smith the Dallas-based firm that represented i4i and secured yesterday's stunning victory continues its head-turning winning streak. Just last month, the firm was part of a legal team that obtained a $19 million patent infringement verdict against Apple Inc. relating to rights to technology owned by Palo Alto, Calif.-based Opti Inc. for technology found in Apple hard drives and iPods. A few weeks before that, attorneys in the firm's New York office obtained an important partial summary judgment and injunction against New York-based Liz Claiborne Inc. and its subsidiary, Los Angeles-based Lucky Brand Dungarees Inc. In the ruling(available here), the court found infringement against the Lucky Brand entities over their sale of garments bearing the unauthorized "Get Lucky" mark. The firm already enjoys the distinction of having more National Law Journal Top 100 verdicts for 2008 than any other firm in the country.