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$358 Million Patent Judgment Against Microsoft Overturned

Posted by Soulskill on from the ain't-over-till-it's-over dept.

eldavojohn writes "Last year, Microsoft was ordered to pay Alcatel-Lucent hundreds of millions of dollars for patent infringement. Well, that award has just been overturned by the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, saving Microsoft a considerable sum. But Microsoft isn't in the clear yet; the appellate court said that they did infringe on Alcatel-Lucent patents, but that those infringements did not warrant $358 million in damages. The case needs to be retried."

2 of 76 comments (clear)

  1. Re:The case needs to be retried by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Actually, only the damages portion is to be retried, so it wasn't a COMPLETE win for the lawyers. The opinion itself can be found on the appeals court website here: http://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/opinions/08-1485.pdf. (see conclusion on second-to-last page.)

  2. Re:Cooperation. by tinkerghost · · Score: 2, Informative

    Actually, the last report I heard was that patents - outside of the drug industry - are a multi-billion dollar net loss for everyone except lawyers. Yes, that is correct - several billion dollars a year more is paid in patent litigation than is earned through rewards, licensing, and settlements.

    Thus patent law will never be reformed properly because it would kill a multi-billion dollar industry populated entirely by lawyers.