A federal appeals court has ruled in favor of TiVo today in the long-standing patent case brought against them by Dish and EchoStar, with the news sending TiVo’s stock shares up over 55 percent on gigantic volume.
The district court had ruled last year that Dish and EchoStar had violated TiVo patents and ordered a permanent injunction on DVRs being sold by the company’s that used the infringing technology.
The companies were also told to pay TiVo $300 million in damages, and the latest ruling will finally pave the way for TiVo to receive that money.
Result for: patent case
Appeals court judges have called the $290 million damages awarded to i4i in a patent infringement lawsuit against Microsoft. i4i had originally won its case against Microsoft, which resulted in $290 million damages to be paid by Microsoft and an injunction against the sale of Microsoft’s Word 2003 and Word 2007 applications.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit stayed that injunction earlier this month. Judge Kimberly Moore of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit took issue with the calculation of the damages; specifically that it assumed that users who bought a $90 version of the software from Microsoft would have paid considerably higher to pay for an alternative.
“Not everyone who is willing to pay $90 or $200 for a product is willing to pay $500,” she said. The grilling wasn’t just for i4i’s side however, as Judge Alvin Schall pressed Microsoft’s representatives on a claim that there is “no direct evidence” that anyone at Microsoft actually read the patent in question.
“I find it hard to believe that Microsoft didn’t read the patent,” the Judge said. i4i claims it approached Microsoft in 2000 for licensing negotiations, and that the two companies made joint presentations but never reached an agreement. Microsoft has acknowledged being in contact with i4i about the XML patent, but it has asked the appeals court to overturn the lower court’s decision.
Result for: patent case
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.
