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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."

5 of 76 comments (clear)

  1. Cooperation. by Forty+Two+Tenfold · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The more stuff I read about patent litigation the less I understand why the corporations don't come to the conclusion that it doesn't do them any good. Patent law reformed reasonably, everyone would benefit (and, presumably, profit).

    --
    Upward mobility is a slippery slope - the higher you climb the more you show your ass.
    1. Re:Cooperation. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I completely agree with you. However this will never happen (by way other than the people voting patents out) because all companies need to build the biggest patent porfolio they can just to intimidate other large companies into not suing them. Patents have become weapons of intellectual and economic destruction. IBM has over 50,000 patents, Microsoft has 30,000+ patents. These companies have contract saying they wont sue each other because they could get nothing done. However, they sue the little guys, and the little guys sue them. However the big companies with a load of patents remain in power forever, destroying legitimate competition in the market place. Patent are an invention of the state and are maintained by the state. Patents and copyrights are INEXISTENT in a true free market.

  2. Too bad they didn't share a few MP3's by RenHoek · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's 'funny' how a consumer can rack up a fine of a couple of million for sharing a few MP3's, to "send out a clear signal to copyright infringers". But for a repeat offender like Microsoft a fine of a few million (which is peanuts really) is somehow too high. It's great how the American justice system has its priorities straight like that. (Not only the American justice system btw, huzzah for lobbyists).

  3. The case needs to be retried by JohnHegarty · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The case needs to be retried , so a great win for the lawyers on both sides.

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    Cruise TT
  4. Mod me flamebait if you like... by Anne+Honime · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ... I've got karma to lose, but when the EU take a couple of months to review the buyout of Sun by Oracle to assess the impact on competition, it's evil protectionism, but when a US court of appeal overturn the damages awarded by a lower court to a rightful holder of a patent, it's just sheer justice done to a strategic company. It absolutely doesn't matter in the latter case that the victim is EU based and the offender is an already convicted US based monopolist with a track record of shoddy behaviours as long as the road 66.