Microsoft, Autodesk Guilty of Patent Infringement

rfunches writes "A Texas jury has awarded $133 million in damages to David Colvin, after finding Microsoft and Autodesk guilty of infringing upon Colvin's two software patents for software antipiracy protection. Colvin's company, z4 Technologies Inc., filed patents for 'passwords and codes assigned to individual software copies to prevent unauthorized copies.' Microsoft was ordered to pay $115 million, and Autodesk $18 million for infringement of the product-activation schemes. A spokesman from Microsoft contends that 'Microsoft developed its own product-activation technologies well before z4 Technologies filed for its patent.' Appeals are expected."

Comments

Re:No activation codes?

[jim_v2000]

The single biggest thing that held back WinXP OTS sales is the product activation scheme.

Good point. I still haven't purchased a copy of XP for that reason alone. I don't mind hte price, I just don't want to have to reactive everytime I change hardware.