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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."
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/Yeah I offered them an Alcatel-Lucent MP3 patent Indemnification plan but they said I was just trying to shake them down.
Oh, that's easy! Ideally Microsoft pays the fine first, once again getting bit in the ass by software patents, and thus becomes an even greater force against software patents. Software patents are eliminated, and both MS and Free Software folks have a big party together with beer kegs and streamers and drunken install CD swapping.
Then Microsoft gets fined another $1.5 billion, for being jerks. Then another billion for being assholes. Then another billion for each chair Ballmer has thrown.
But seriously, I think them being penalized goes great with getting rid of patents. The more evidence that software patents are a hindrance to the software industry the better.
The enemies of Democracy are
even big companies can benefit for adopting royalty-free open standards.
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."
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
"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?"
Assuming that ATM distributed $20 bills Bill just carried 82 tons of cash from the ATM to Steve's car. I guess he's spent some his of change under his sofa on cybernetic enhancements.
Hobby Robotics
Tough days for chairs ...
Chances are, M$, 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.
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.