Jury finds against Microsoft in $1.5B patent dispute with Alcatel-Luce Options

[Xbox-Scene]

Jury finds against Microsoft in $1.5B patent dispute with Alcatel-Lucent Posted by HSDEMONZ | February 24 10:14 EST

From Sandiego Union Tribune: [QUOTE] Microsoft Corp. must pay $1.5 billion in damages to telecommunications equipment maker Alcatel-Lucent SA for violating two patents related to digital music, a federal jury ruled Thursday. The Redmond, Wash.-based software company said the patents in question govern the conversion of audio into the digital MP3 file format on personal computers. In 2003, Lucent Technologies Inc., which last year was acquired by Alcatel, filed 15 patent claims against Gateway Inc. and Dell Inc. In April 2003, Microsoft added itself to the list of defendants, saying the patents were closely tied to its Windows operating system. The PC makers are still defendants. Microsoft said a judge threw out two of the 2003 patent claims, and scheduled six separate trials to consider the remaining disputes. The case that was just decided went to trial in San Diego on Jan. 29. "We think this verdict is completely unsupported by the law or the facts," said Tom Burt, a Microsoft deputy general counsel. Microsoft disputed that Paris-based Alcatel-Lucent's patents govern its MP3 encoding and decoding tools, and said it licenses the MP3 software used by its Windows Media Player from Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, a German company. "We believe that we properly licensed MP3 technology from its industry recognized licenser - Fraunhofer. The damages award seems particularly outrageous when you consider we paid Fraunhofer only $16 million to license this technology." [/QUOTE] Fully Story.. News-Source: Sandiego Union Tribune

[pholly]

It's like biggie used to say, the more money you have the more problems you see

[quall]

I wonder what they will try to do to the company that is licensing MP3 software. The ones who sold licenses to MS.

[DJdad]

1.5 Billion
That doesn't pass the smell test. Something smells fishy.

[ConteZero76]

The only thing that's going down is the whole patent system.
Every major company is now plagued for some infringement that can easily crash a market.
Sony had his share, Microsoft is getting some right now (still expecting Google claiming his patents about online gaming).
They are bound to the whole patent system and they're going to suffer because they wanted (you know, it's called lobbying) this kind of scenario.

Something that should sound as "You got what you deserved".

[Hashmire420]

Something that should sound as "You got what you deserved".

To me everything in the patent system sounds more like "You got served".

[cowsn]

what have i been doing with my life... i should go out there, get some patents, and sue people

[ausmods]

what have i been doing with my life... i should go out there, get some patents, and sue people

Lol, thats what I was just thinking........There is so many companies getting sued over patents, its kind of silly. But then again, if a company like M$ did sometihng like that and I could sue them for a crapload of money, I wouldve done the same thing.

Greed is a great thing isnt it.

[spinr34]

wow all of this happened in my city and i didn't even know about it. someone needs to smack that jury though. 1.5B, sheezus. even for microsoft that is a huge hit.

[Zanzang]

Wow.

The sad thing is that as tech advances we will see more of these cases where average citizens with absolutely no idea as to what they're deciding on will decide the fates and fortunes of massive corporations. Heck, this isn't even just for corporations, look at Julie Amaro's case:

Welcome to the nightmare of Julie Amero, a 40-year-old substitute teacher in Norwich, Conn. That's what she says happened to her at the hands of the technologically illiterate Kelly Middle School, technologically illiterate police, a technologically illiterate prosecutor, and a technologically illiterate jury.
One juror told PC World columnist Steve Bass, "If a 40-year-old school teacher does not have the sense to turn off or is not smart enough to figure it out, would you or any other person wanting her teaching your child or grandchild?"

Thus according to that jury, "not having the sense to turn off a computer" is a multi-count felony punishable by 40 years in prison. Wow.

I hope Microsoft appeals, and presses for reform to have tech-literate juries decide technological cases.

This post has been edited by Zanzang: Feb 25 2007, 02:20 AM

[smokeynerd]

Half of the people on the jury probaby have Windows Genuine Advantage notices on their machines LOL !!!! HAHAHA.

[HamSandwhich]

Half of the people on the jury probaby have Windows Genuine Advantage notices on their machines LOL !!!! HAHAHA.

LOL

[Charbless]

I think the problem now is the name MS because of how large they are they are going to get everything against them it's getting really stupid and the payout cost makes no sence no way would they make that from there product.

[DeMoN_DARREN]

No matter how much of an evil empire you might think Microsoft is (which it is...), 1.5 Billion is waaaaaaaaaaay too much

[metalcoat]

That is way too much, just think who they are going to go after this. If this was a real problem they would have sued several years ago. They are a plague to the already destroyed patent system. Considering MP3 has been a ISO Standard since 1991 and them not enforcing anything until 16 years later. This isn't just a problem for Microsoft. Every person thinks it is free but now that drop a bomb, I can't wait for the newly found merger to bankrupt themselves with their new business model.