In the third of five lawsuits brought forth against Microsoft by Alcatel-Lucent SA, a federal jury has ruled that the Microsoft Xbox 360 console does not violate any patents held my Alcatel-Lucent and threw the case out.
The technologies company had wanted $420 million USD in damages. On the other side however, Microsoft had counter-sued for $11.5 million USD in damages, claiming that Alcatel-Lucent had infringed one of their patents.
The jury ruled that “one of Microsoft’s patents was invalid and found that Alcatel-Lucent didn’t violate another four of the company’s patents.”
Last year, in the first of the five trials, a jury ruled that Microsoft’s Windows Media Player “infringed Alcatel-Lucent’s patents for the MP3 digital-audio standard” and awarded the latter company a huge $1.52 billion USD settlement. The verdict however is now on appeal and it appears the damages award will be lessened.
Two months ago, another federal jury awarded Alcatel-Lucent $368 million USD for “Microsoft’s infringement of its patents for touch-screen form entry and use of a computer stylus.”
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A federal judge has denied Microsoft’s appeal in one of five patent cases brought against it by Alcatel-Lucent and says the software giant will have to pay $511.6 million USD in damages and interest.
In April a jury awarded Lucent $357.7 million USD and Microsoft had asked the judge to reconsider the award. Judge Marilyn L. Huff denied that request however and increased the damages payable. She said the new amount accounts for “prejudgment interest to compensate for how long it took to resolve the matter.”
“We are disappointed that Judge Huff denied our request for a new trial,” said Microsoft spokesman David Bowermaster, in an e-mailed statement. “We plan to appeal the rulings against us. We are confident that the damages award against Microsoft will not be sustained on appeal.”
“We had always believed we had a strong case and are pleased that the judge agreed that the jury’s thoughtful verdict was well reasoned and supported by the evidence presented during the more than monthlong trial on these two patents,” said Alcatel-Lucent spokeswoman Mary Lou Ambrus in an e-mailed statement.
Alcatel-Lucent had filed five suits against Microsoft in 2003, over a plethora of different patents and has so far won most of the cases, with huge multi-million dollar damages awards as well.
