After two years, a Delaware judge has ruled that Farmville developer Zynga must pay IBM $44.9 million in an infringement lawsuit.

A Delaware jury found Zynga willfully violated two patents concerning features and advertising technology used in several popular games. The game developer says it will appeal.

The internet is so core to how modern life operates that it's easy to forget how much of the technology that went into building the world wide web has patent protections. And some of those patents are still being enforced today.

Zynga must pay IBM nearly $45 million in damages after a jury ruled that popular games in its FarmVille series, as well as individual hits like Harry Potter: Puzzles and Spells, infringed on two early IBM patents.

Big Blue’s Prodigy from the 1980s comes back to haunt FarmVille giant IBM's patent farm has yielded another bumper crop, with a Delaware jury awarding Big Blue $45 million in damages from mobile games maker Zynga.