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Microsoft Loses Appeal in Guatemalan Patent Claim

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the no-corner-view-in-this-office dept.

Spy der Mann writes "A year ago, Guatemalan inventor Carlos Armando Amado sued Microsoft for stealing an Office idea he had tried to sell them in '92. They were found to be infringing on his patent and had to pay him $9 million in damages, but they refused and appealed the decision. Today, just a year after they appealed, the Court confirmed the verdict: Microsoft loses. If that wasn't enough, the amount was raised to $65 million for continuing infringement."

3 of 174 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Do they care? by nurb432 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Its not quite that bad, but yes, stalling the case for a year has gained them much more revenue in the country than the 65M fine. Its just consider a 'cost of doing business'.

    We have a radio station in town that was similar. They would regularly violate FCC broadcast power and obscenity rules. However, the extra distance ( power ) and listeners ( obscenity ) far outweighed the fines they incurred and just made jokes about it ( on air even ). The process continued for years until they were top dog in that market and didnt need to do it anymore.

    --
    ---- Booth was a patriot ----
  2. Are you sure? by sane? · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Are you sure this is the patent in question?

    I've skimmed through the vast extent of it and some points arise:

    1. it should never have got accepted in the first place, its a piece of software, written as patent
    2. it references Microsoft FoxPro as something it works within, which both dates it and calls into question the Access/Excel claims
    3. its a mess of AI, Genetic algorothms, decision support, data mining and virtually every other buzzphrase in the known universe
    4. it describes a level of intelligent action on input data such as I've never seen in a Microsoft application
    If this is really the PoS that $65m is built on, I'm in the wrong game.
  3. This is one of those crap patents by fatdog789 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Let me get this straight: the guy patented a method of using the MS APIs to move data between two of their own products? So...basically, he used another companies intellectual property to create his own intellectual property of a feature they were probably going to add themselves later? This ranks up there with patenting business ideas. If Apple had been on the losing end, this place would be filled with outrage at the patent system (ie, the Creative suit).