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Microsoft Found Guilty of Patent Infringement

Posted by samzenpus on from the pay-up dept.

Spy der Mann writes "Microsoft has been found guilty of patent infringement and ordered to pay a Guatamalan inventor Carlos Armando Amado almost $9m in damages. The US District Court of Central California court ruled that Microsoft had infringed on his intellectual property and ordered it to pay him $8.96m. The patent in question is a method to transfer data between Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Access using a single spreadsheet."

1 of 342 comments (clear)

  1. WAIT WAIT READ WHAT HE DID, THEN SPEAK by keepper · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Carlos Armando Amado devised a way to connect Excel with Access using a specially crafted spreadsheet during his tenure as a graduate student at Stanford University. After applying for a patent in 1990, Mr. Amando approached Microsoft to license the software, but was denied.

    Microsoft then used the same exact method.

    Now, while i totally disagree with the idea of patents like this... It changes the story a bit doesnt it?
    Heh, after all this is slashdot.