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Microsoft Pays $440M to License InterTrust Patents

Posted by timothy on from the never-intertrust-anyone dept.

theodp writes "Microsoft is paying $440 million to InterTrust to settle a three-year-old patent infringement lawsuit over DRM technology for protecting music, movies and other digital content against piracy. Under the settlement agreement, customers can use Microsoft products and services without a license from InterTrust. Developers, however, may need a license from InterTrust for other uses, including the combination of Microsoft technology with third-party technology." C.J. adds a link to the New York Times' coverage of the settlement.

2 of 169 comments (clear)

  1. BBC coverage [registration-free] by Compact+Dick · · Score: 2, Redundant


    Check out the BBC's article: Microsoft settles patents case

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    Use ISO 8601 dates [YYYY-MM-DD]
  2. Microsoft never pays per license royalties . . . by StateOfTheUnion · · Score: 1, Redundant

    Has anyone else noticed that Microsoft prefers to pay a lump sum for an unlimited license (with respect to users or copies of a product sold) rather than a royalty on the number of products sold/licensed? With as big a war chest as they have, I guess they don't want to owe anyone royalties on future products/development. And then they can continue using the technology in their OS'es forever . . .