Microsoft to pay $1.5 billion for patent infringement: report
301809
A U.S. federal jury found that Microsoft Corp infringed on audio patents held by Alcatel-Lucent and should pay $1.52 billion in damages, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday.
710263
Microsoft has agreed to settle a multimillion dollar lawsuit brought by thousands of Iowa consumers and businesses who say the company's anticompetitive practices forced them to pay inflated prices for software including Microsoft's Windows, Word and Excel.
264116
The Financial Times reported yesterday that Microsoft paid the Computer and Communications Industry Association $19.75 million earlier this month to settle an antitrust suit, and that the association&#39;s top official received $9.75 million of that amount.
139959
Thousands of California companies and residents could lose a share of the $1.1 billion antitrust settlement against Microsoft Corp.
473581
By JESSICA MINTZ SEATTLE - A federal jury's ruling that Microsoft infringed on two MP3 patents and must pay $1.52 billion in damages could turn into a major sour note for other technology companies in the digital music business.
704439
Microsoft will pay Novell $536 million to settle an antitrust dispute. Novell plans to file a new suit againt Microsoft regarding word-processing software.
261745
Microsoft on Thursday filed lawsuits against 23 companies in California and Florida, alleging distribution of counterfeit software.
661816
A federal jury in San Diego yesterday ordered Microsoft to pay $1.52 billion to Alcatel-Lucent for violating two patents for a technology used by hundreds of companies that allows users to play digital music on computers, cellphones and other portable devices.
475661
Microsoft Corp. must pay $1.52 billion in damages to telecommunications equipment maker Alcatel-Lucent SA for violating two patents related to digital music, a federal jury ruled Thursday.
659142
A US court's ruling ordering Microsoft to pay out $1.5bn for infringing MP3 patents could have widespread effects on the technology sector.
57093
The suit seeks $1 billion in damages and an injunction against further violations.
40500
An appeals court should throw out a half-billion-dollar patent infringement judgment against Microsoft because a lower court failed to recognize that the Web browsing patent was based on a technology that was not invented by the company awarded the money
499981
Microsoft is appealing a $565 million judgment awarded to Eolas, a spinoff of the University of California, in a patent infringement case.
719111
A San Francisco judge ordered Microsoft  Corp. MSFT.O to pay lawyers involved in its $1.1 billion  class action settlement $100 million in legal fees, less than  half of the original fees they requested, company officials  said on Thursday.
551111
California consumers and  businesses will soon receive $1.1 billion in delayed payouts  from Microsoft Corp.  to settle antitrust claims  against the world's biggest software maker, lawyers in the case  said on Wednesday.
110358
Microsoft Corp. presented oral arguments Wednesday before the U.S. Supreme Court in a 6-year-old patent lawsuit filed by AT&amp;T Inc. whose outcome could require U.S. software companies to pay fines for patent-infringing software assembled in other countries.
199416
(InfoWorld) - Microsoft presented oral arguments Wednesday before the U.S. Supreme Court in a 6-year-old patent lawsuit filed by AT&T whose outcome could require U.S. software companies to pay fines for patent-infringing software assembled in other countries. At issue in the case is how the court will interpret an obscure section of U.S. patent law, Section 271F, which says that if a U.S. company makes product components in the U.S and supplies them to companies overseas -- and the products assembled from those components result in patent infringements -- the company must pay patent damages for products assembled overseas as well as those made stateside. AT&T originally filed the case in federal court in New York in 2001 claiming that Microsoft infringed on one of its patents for digitally coding and decoding speech in its Windows OS. AT&T set out to recover damages not only from copies of Windows manufactured in the U.S., but also those made in other countries from the master disk of Windows that was sent to those countries and used to assemble computers with the OS installed. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in July 2005 upheld a lower-court ruling that Microsoft is liable to pay fines for foreign sales of patent-infringing software even if it was originally created in the U.S. In court Wednesday, Former U.S. Solicitor General Theodore B. Olson, an attorney with Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, argued Microsoft's case, which claims that the patent law was aimed at closing a loophole that allowed companies to manufacture all of the components of patented inventions in the U.S., but avoid patent liability by assembling those U.S.-made components in other countries. "We believe this law was applied improperly by the lower court to find liability based solely on computers manufactured overseas," Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith said in a statement. "A U.S. patent was never meant to apply to conduct that takes place entirely abroad." Therefore, Microsoft is asking that the Surpeme Court reverse the lower-court ruling. In a statement, Abha Divine, president and CEO of AT&T Knowledge Ventures, said the company believes that all U.S.-based sources of innovation, including the software development community, can benefit from patent laws that allow for "appropriate and fair" protection of all new inventions and technologies. The outcome of the case will depend on how the Supreme Court interprets the words "components" and "supplies" in the law, said John E. Daniel, partner in law firm Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel's Intellectual Property Department in New York. "Some people have a concern that [the lower court ruling] seems to be beyond what was intended," he said. "When [Congress] passed the legislation,Â it was thinking of making physical components, not software. The comeback is, 'What's the difference?' You still make copies, and Microsoft makes money based on people selling those copies." Microsoft has had some unusual allies in this case, such as its former nemesis the U.S. government and competitor Yahoo, both of whom have filed briefs in support of the vendor's argument. Companies fear that a precedent may be set that will potentially cost U.S. software companies millions of dollars in fines. There is also a concern that U.S. companies will take their research and development offshore to avoid fines, Daniel said.