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Microsoft to Pay $1.52 Billion in Patent Suit Damages
An anonymous reader writes "A U.S. federal jury found that Microsoft Corp. infringed audio patents held by Alcatel-Lucent and should pay $1.52 billion in damages, Microsoft said Thursday. The news comes after reports that U.S. Supreme Court justices expressed doubts about whether Microsoft Corp. should be liable for infringing AT&T Inc. patents in Windows software sold overseas."
Microsoft being penalized or software patents being eliminated? Its like torture! Which way will we go!
http://bgcommonsense.blogspot.com
That's what happens to companies that vandalize copper cables from others!
Well, you know, patents are bad. So even though MS is "evil", supporting this ruling is the wrong way to go... Right?
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
their shares are up. What a world we live in.
Lately it seems that Microsoft has been spiraling downward at a good pace. From the uneventful launch of Vista to lawsuits like this, I think MS is spending more time on litigation and PR than developing good products.
gasmonso http://religiousfreaks.com/I dunno I just have to hope when I flip the coin it explodes and kills me
All the more reason to sue Linux users. Need to keep the software patent dollar redistribution cycle going.
Yeah I offered them an Alcatel-Lucent MP3 patent Indemnification plan but they said I was just trying to shake them down.
even big companies can benefit for adopting royalty-free open standards.
Bill Gates gets a call while he and his wife are having dinner out. Gates' response after hanging up:
"Honey? I'll be right back. Steve needs $1.5B so I'm going to go to the ATM across the street. He's waiting outs--I think that's him honking. Can you order the chocolate cake for me for dessert?"
The actual case is actually not half as interesting as Microsoft's and the Justice Department's arguments that source code isn't patentable. "I think the reason that's not relevant here is that the patented invention in this case is not software," [Assistant Solicitor General Daryl ] Joseffer said. "It's computer that has software loaded into it. And the components of a patented invention do not themselves have to be patented." Justice Alito's next question indicated his astonishment. "If these computers are built abroad and are sold with Windows installed, the component is the electrons on the hard drive? That's your position?" Joseffer responded yes, that's the US' position, but no, that's not AT&T's position. "It's the physical embodiment of the software which in some instances is manifested by -- by those electrons," said Joseffer, perhaps broaching for the first time in history the topic of whether electrons are patentable. "Now AT&T's contrary view is that the abstract code in the abstract is the component. The reason that can't be, is that object code in the abstract is just a series of 1's and 0's. In theory I could memorize in my head or write down on a piece of paper. But that's not going to combine with other, with other parts to make a patented invention."
What we have learned to date is that Microsoft will never have to pay anything like this kind of penalty. Even if they are guilty, they have already demonstrated their ability to heap appeal on top of appeal until many years from now, technology advancements will have moved the goal posts, effectively rendering the original claim irrelevant.
Their mastery of the legal system is so complete that were Eliot Ness alive today, Microsoft would be the principal nemesis in The Untouchables 2.
Shit, I don't care how rich Microsoft is.. 1.52 billion? Thats gotta hurt!
Patents are evil. Microsoft is evil.
Therefore, Microsoft being slightly hurt because of a patent infrigement ruling == neutral and we can all go home and have a nice cup of tea.
PS I'm scared because my last post was modded "flamebait", possibly because I accidentally called Canada the "People's Republic of Canuckistan". That hurt.
Azural - instrumentals
Code as such isn't patentable ... what's the news here?
Oooooooooh, that's gotta hurt!
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0228246/quotes
Enjoy,
It's just the normal noises in here.
Does anyone know the details of this? I mean I always thought Fraunhofer would hold the mp3 patents, and it seems that MS had licensed them, as I guess many others. Does Lucent/AT&T really own mp3 and can go after everybody?
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
MS still has a number of appeals. Most importantly, the Federal Circuit has a 30-40% reversal rate in patent claim construction cases. It's too early to say that MS will pay.
I feel bad for MS losing a software patent lawsuit in the same way I feel bad about a rampaging psycho with a gun getting shot...
Doesn't just about every piece of commercial MP3-related software also have the same deal with Fraunhofer? Does this case expose hundreds of companies to similar legal problems? Does not at all seem like a good thing at first reading.
Federal reserve system collapses on Lucent's deposit of Microsoft check.
If you call this "spiraling downward", I can only hope that my company could one day "spiral downward" at a similar pace.
I don't respond to AC's.
What pisses me off is how they can go around suing everyone for patent stuff when they do it themselves thinking no one will find out.
- Jorge Peña
More info here
"Alcatel-Lucent's victory also may clear the way for legal actions against hundreds of companies that rely on MP3"
Full transcript.
Tough days for chairs ...
I HATE to play devil's advocate here, particularly in defense of (yeck!) Microsoft. But (for those who actually read TFA) if MS purchased licensing for mp3 from Fraunhofer, then they actually did the right thing. Fraunhofer, evil as they are, have had the stranglehold on mp3 since day zero.
IMO Alcatel-Lucent have just successfully scammed some quick $$ off MS.
> "A U.S. federal jury found that Microsoft Corp. infringed audio patents held by Alcatel-Lucent and should pay $1.52 billion"
^^^^^^
You misspelled feral.
Chances are, M$, instead of seeing the light and lobby against the patentability of algorithms/math/shapes of clouds/ways of combing hair/etc will just hire more patent lawyers and patent everything remotely connected to computers to build a very thick patent armor and a large caliber cannon too.
At the end of the day Lucent and Microsoft and all those behemoths will sort it out between themselves and the small players get eliminated.
The IP lobby gets multiple orgasms, extends patent expiry terms to that of copyright, then extends the copyright to be ahead of patents and generates a new class of IP, the 'unpublished thought'. Since that latter can not be effectively monitored (yet), they introduce a levy (indexed by the education level) to be paid by any cognitive being to the TCAA (Thought Control Association of America); those who can't pay can instead sell themselves to the TCAA, which will export them to Chinese sweatshops as extra cheap slave labour. Persons trying to hide their being educated will be prosecuted as thought terrorist and will be sent to secret CIA torture centres where they will be used for testing new methods of extracting one's innermost thoughts. Skipping school is considered a federal offense and offenders are sent to re-education camps (these can be cheaply leased from Gulag, Inc. a company run by the Russian maffia). People in coma (and thus with no income) but with measurable brain activity will have their organs removed and sold to pay for their thoughts, however, as soon as their EEG goes flat, no more organs can be extracted in lieu of the thought levy. Rather, all remaining organs can be taken by the TCAA as payment of punitive damages for depriving the TCAA of its income by the old trick of being dead.
Then the ants all go to the Père Lachaise cemetery and spit on La Fontaine's grave.
Has begun, the patent wars.
Tough days for chairs .
Just last week I took my investment adviser's advice and put my money in Ikea chairs.
At least I think that's what he said.
For those of you who are caught up in hating MS, open your eyes and see what this really means. Many other companies licensed the technology from Germany's Fraunhofer. The list includes Apple, Sony, Creative Tech., Napster, and many other companies. This means that if this ruling stands, you will see many other lawsuits in the future related to this technology.
What were you saying about protecting intellectual property????????
Neither story actually tells us anything about the alleged issue. They mention MP3, Fraunhofer, speech conversion, Lucent, but zilch about Microsoft-MP3-Lucent-courtcase. Crap journalism.
Morbo wants more patent suits. Make the whole system collapse in on it's stupidity.
Bonus points since MSFT just threatened to sue Linux users for violating MSFT patents.
mmm karma.
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Worse! it also means MP3 players are unlicensed and you'll now have to use AAC. Too bad for everyone who locked themselves in to a proprietary non_DRM format that will soon lack any new players. Seriously... Can you imagine that ipods are immune to this lawsuits consequences?
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Wall Street laughed at this news when it was released. If the street doesn't believe it, you can bet it's a non-event.
Even if MSFT does pay, which wouldn't be for quite some time, they have 26 Billion dollars in cash on hand, and revenues of 46 Billion per dollars year.
In other words this is not the end of MSFT as some alarmists are claiming.
You were joking; but that's exactly the same kind of non-indemnification that Microsoft sells its customers:
6 7
It's very likely that now Microsoft has a license to use MP3 internally; but no right to sublicense it to end users who may still be liable.
If you think I'm kidding, they've done it before:
http://www.oreillynet.com/cs/user/view/cs_msg/430
Times up. If you haven't sued yet, you can't sue now.
Expect lawsuits all over the place. This really is the type of thing that the EFF should get involved in - they went after MS first, but expect Apple and fifteen million other companies to be attacked by this too. They've basically backdated a patent so the current deals don't apply and they can sue practically everybody for silly money - this is really a "BURN ALL MP3S"-type situation.
This was posted by an AC earlier, which apparently nobody saw; so let me attempt to be loud enough to get heard.
This is a bad thing. B-A-D.
Many, MANY companies have this same deal with Fraunhofer. MS is only the first to be sued. It's very likely that those companies large enough to be worth suing will also be sued in large numbers, after this. The fact that you guys hate MS so much you consider many, many companies getting sued a "haha" matter shows you have a profoundly sick sense of humor.
You have tried to support your argument with faulty reasoning! Go directly to jail; do not pass Go, do not collect $200!
It would really suck for everyone, but a massive patent war is probably the only way we'll end up with a sane patent system.
At this point I'd be surprised if it's possible to write a program more complex than:
print "Hello World\n";
and not infringe on at least one patent.
"AT&T is willing to concede that software isn't patentable, if the Court will conclude that the things that software does - the methods and procedures and instructions that a processor carries out once software is installed - are patentable."
Is not things such as "methods and procedures and instructions that a processor carries out" software?
From my perspective they are saying:
"AT&T is willing to concede that software isn't patentable, if the Court will conclude that software is patentable"
I'm confused.
Wait for it...
Do I smell the RIAA encouraging this? Wouldn't they LOVE to nuke anyone who uses an Mp3?
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
A few more of these and software industry will abolish patents on its own volition.
Uhh. AAC don't inherently have DRM. AAC actually has superior audio quality against MP3 in quite a few stuides and is an open format. It's just the proprietary extensions of AAC add DRM. Heck, you could add a proprietary extension to MP3 to make it DRM'ed.
If it's no on fire, it's a hardware problem.
For a start, this could shake MS into changing their stance towards software patents, it could also scare companies away from the Mp3 format, it could also have repercusions for Open Source apps, both good and bad, and of course... it's always great to see Bill Gates lose money, they've been dodging the bullet for so long, they're certainly due.
That wasn't the point, as I read it. The point is that there may be a strong incentive to make players that don't support MP3 because it's encumbered and the owners doing the encumbering seem willing to exercise the ownership of their patent. In other words, there may be a shift to non-mp3 formats (AAC or say, ogg) for more players, and possible waning of MP3 domination due to incompatibility on players that don't support MP3 to keep cost down.
In other news, in addition to fashioning crude weapons from pointed sticks, chimpanzees apparently have been granted mod points.
If they bought a license, what's the big deal ? All they need to do is recover the relevant emails from their backups.
So basically, if I patent binary electron usage... ??? Profit?!?!
Sometimes I wonder if I think too much.
...it might be a good idea to start batch converting all his MP3s over to OGG?
Oh, wait. MSFT would just try to patent OGG, too. I mean, they do own the patent on the numbers 0-9, as well as the letters A-F, don't they?
Heck, I even heard they've been harassing the Count from Sesame Street for licensing fees...
Keep in mind Microsoft paid Fraunhofer $16M to license the MP3 codecs in Media Player. Lucent went after Microsoft and won. Who did Apple pay to license MP3s? Apple is next. This will affect everyone. Go OOG.
"We are concerned that this decision opens the door for Alcatel-Lucent to pursue action against hundreds of other companies who purchased the rights to use MP3 technology from Fraunhofer, the industry-recognized rightful licensor," Tom Burt, Microsoft's deputy general counsel, said in a statement.
Oh! I see! Microsoft is now The Company That Cares!
Please. Since when has the welfare of another company been of any interest whatsoever to this utterly ruthless behemoth?
Those who can, do. Those who can't, write technology blogs.
See MS paid all the royalties on MP3. MP3 is owned and licensed by Thompson Multimedia. They've got a page set up for it (mp3licensing.com) well established rates, and so on. The problem is that Lucent apparently feels that they have a patent that covers it as well and is doing what many businesses do when their own products start sucking: Trying to get money from the big boys.
Well the same shit could happen to OGG. The developers give it out for free and claim no patents over it. Nobody is real likely to sue them as they don't have much money. However if your corp implements OGG and makes billions on the product, maybe someone finds a patent they have that they think covers something in OGG and sues you. Doesn't matter that the developers don't charge a license, that's a separate issue.
Also please note that things like MP3 ARE open standards. Open doesn't mean free. It means a standard that anyone has access to. The general requirements are that anyone can obtain it for a reasonable and non-discriminatory fee (which could be zero). That means that whatever is charged is reasonable in the scope of what it is, and that the fee is constant, the licensor doesn't play favourites and refuse to license to some people. There's lots of open standards that cost money. However their openness means that if you pay the money, you get the relevant documentation and the right to implement the standard as you see fit.
It's free as in speech, not necessarily free as in sleeping on someone's couch. People seems to confound these often, thinking one must imply the other. I think part of it is many people who say they use OSS because it's open in fact use it because it doesn't cost anything. That's a fine reason, but realise things can be no cost and not open, or cost money but be open.
Also realise that the developers deciding to not charge doesn't mean some other asshole can't claim they've got a patent on it.
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China alone holds a trillion dollars of US debt, Japan a similar amount.
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Punishing M$ by money will only enforce M$ in the patent use, and not the other way. Because they make many much more money with patent than they loose with it. And more than that, they can make all windows user pay for that by increasing their license price. If think that the right punishment for violating patent would be to not allow M$ to use patent .... make them pay for that only make other (those who will get the money for the patent M$ broke) want to use patent too.
No matter what sort of schadenfreude we feel at the irony of Microsoft being bashed yet again for patent breaches, we should still be concerned at the effects this will have on the rest of the industry. The Fraunhofer Institute has been quite liberal with the MP3 patent - taking the side that if you don't make money on what you do with it, you don't have a pay a patent for it, and they don't demand ridiculous fees for it, so Linux has been generally quite uncumbered. Alcatel stepping up to claim royalties on it and now succeeding could pretty much mark the death of the MP3 format, as player manufacturers, OS developers and such like will take the view that supporting MP3 is no longer profitable.
Of course, there's always the superior OGG format to replace it as an DRM-unencumbered format. I think if more people started to use OGG it would make player manufacturers think about supporting it. We need to get more easy-to-use MP3 to OGG converters and easy-to-install codecs for Windows out there.
First people were mad that MS had abandoned 'industry' standards by not shipping an MP3 ripper in WMP in Windows.
Then when they do put MP3 ripping in, this is what happens?
Why was MS the only company sued, when there are thousands of companies using MP3 technology, many that didn't even pay for the license like MS did?
So when people complain about MS not using a 'standard' and instead using their own technology like WMA, maybe they should remember crap like this happens all the time.
I don't blame them for using their own toys like OpenXML or anything else, every time they have tried to work with non-MS technology they get bit for it. And anyone here could cite things like PDF,Flash,Java and numerous other technologies that do nothing but force MS to lock their doors tighter and only use their own technology.
Software patents and patent lawsuits are BAD. I don't care if it is MS, Apple, IBM or Joe Blow. And this case really smells, considering MS even paid for the licensing and tried to do it through proper channels and didn't even change or alter the technology, but instead just licensed it to give their customers choice when ripping a freaking CD.
So is anyone else ready to tell all things associated with MP3 and variants to shove it up their ass?
When a company sues for a patent infringement and the patent is good, THEY LIST THE DETAILS OF THE PATENT FOR ALL TO SEE IN THE PRESS RELEASE.
I just read the Lucent press release on this, and nowhere does it mention the patent number. That's a dead giveaway.
since i don't have the balls to post with my name attached @ digg:
...but this lawsuit seems to be bullshit. Lucent needs a cooridinated 4chan/SA server attacking for such sleazy behavior.
i don't care for MS that much either (however, i don't hate them)
as someone on digg pointed out:
Lucent stock, 1999: $80
Lucent stock, today: ~$2.50
online crash analysis Microsoft has encountered a serious problem with the American legal system The online analysis indicates this is due to an error in the American Legal system We have tried to contact the American legal system about this error without success. Recommended action deinstall the American legal system and install Microsoft Legal System 1.1 (beta) immediately Did this solve the problem?
When was MP3 ever considered unencumbered? It was always covered by patents. MS is just saying that it got its licence from Fraunhofer like everyone else.
The whole point of the development of Ogg was that MP3 was and has always been encumbered by patents.
1.5 billion USD is exactly the size of Fraunhofer's entire annual research budget, according to their site.
(Assuming 1,2 Mrd euros means 1.2 milliard, or 1.2 billion, and xe.com says that is $1.57 bn)
Does anyone think someone's lost their sense of scale here? It doesn't answer my initial question though of whether MS could just buy Fraunhofer, with its 12,500 employees.
Ok, so for someone who would like to look into starting to convert all their MP3's to OGG could anyone suggest a -good- MP3 --> OGG converter? And a good program for converting their CD's to OGG? Also how about a good music player that plays OGG's (Zinf)?
Thanks much for any help.
The Truth is a Virus!!!
From BusinessWeek:
There are a few reasons a $1.52 billion ruling might not scare investors away from a $287 billion company. Microsoft generates so much cash that in 2004 the company paid a $32 billion dividend. Analysts said $1.52 billion represents about six weeks of Microsoft's cash flow.
Goldman Sachs analyst Rick G. Sherlund wrote in a client note the damages are "not particularly meaningful" for Microsoft. Even if Microsoft pays the full amount, Sherlund said $1.52 billion equates to about 15 cents of Microsoft's stock.
And it's not clear whether Microsoft will have to pay the full amount, at least this year. Patent-infringement cases "typically go through prolonged appeal processes," said Bear Stearns analyst John DiFucci in a research report.
My understanding was that LAME was designed to be "fraunhofer free", and thus usable without licensing. But does that still hold up in view of the Lucent patents?
If so, then maybe more commercial outfits will move to LAME for encoding, which wouldn't be such a bad thing really.
If not, then the MP3 format (and the future utility of everyone's existing music libraries) really is in trouble...
is that were Linux and mplayer and vlc paid for their library licenses?
Well yes MS got their apparently insufficient licenses from frauhauffer. But Alcatel now says they want 250 times that price right now in lost pastrevenue. The court only ordered then a mere 100 times the amount MS paid to Fraunhoffer. No statement of what the fee for then next ten years is going to be if MS wants to keep using it. And why should they since they have WMA since lack of an mp3 player won't change whether people buy Vista or not.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
oggenc and oggdrop all work well. There are plenty of GUI players that rip CDs to WAV, MP3 and OGG all at the same time. Just get hold of a freeware one. CDRip is one I've used on Windows.
For Linux, grip is excellent, but amarok will do as well for you if you already have an investment. Or, for the extra-lazy, if you can't be bothered to open up a new program, use konqueror, go to the CD device and click on "ogg" directory. Drag n drop out of there and you've got your music.
AAC is also patent-encumbered, so it won't save you from patent licensing.
If companies were to move from mp3 to another format to save on licensing costs, they'd better switch over to Ogg/Vorbis (etc.) or something else instead.
Lack of MP3 support *will* reduce the number of people willing to use Windows Media Player as their default media player though. That'll hurt Microsoft big. Their Windows revenue is fixed, since they own the market, but investors demand growth. Microsoft's current strategy seems to be to grow by locking up ownership of key DRM technologies. They need Windows Media Player and XBox 360 to win big, or they lose the DRM market and an indefinite supply of free money anytime anybody publishes, well, anything.
by the way that's the first two sentences of the wikipedia article you cite.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
dBpoweramp Music Converter, often referred to the Swiss knife of audio. The basic version is free, and it will convert between just about any two audio formats you can name.
One thing to be aware of, however, is that converting from one lossy audio codec to another (e.g., MP3 to Ogg Vorbis) will result in a loss of audio quality.
Momentarily, the need for the construction of new light will no longer exist.
DBPowerAmp is it! It works great for ripping my CD's to OGG. I'll just re-rip I think versus converting all the MP3's to OGG, I'll probably get better audio quality.
Thanks for the info on this cool tool.
The Truth is a Virus!!!