Lawyers: Microsoft&#39;s FAT Patent Defeat &#39;Significant&#39;
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How significant is the US Patent and Trademark Office&#39;s initial rejection of Microsoft&#39;s FAT (file allocation table) file system patent claims?
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A US jury found that Microsoft infringed audio patents held by the world's biggest software maker Alcatel-Lucent.   Microsoft has been ordered to pay Pounds 778m in damages, however the firm says it may appeal the ruling.   It says the verdict is unsupported by the law or the facts.
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Microsoft has lost a patent battle in South Korea concerning input mode technology in its Office software. The decision could force the Redmond company to halt sales of the popular productivity suite in that country, but it is fighting back.
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So, the shape of the Great Battle begins to emerge.  As reported by Fortune magazine, Microsoft's general counsel, Brad Smith, reckons free software infringes on no less than 235 of the company's patents:
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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
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Legal fees loom as ImClone loses a patent dispute.
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After EU antitrust ruling, company questions whether Microsoft's patent arrangement is compatible with open-source licensing.
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(InfoWorld) - Microsoft won a round in its battle with patent licensing company Timeline. On May 29, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington dismissed Timeline's accusations of patent infringement, ruling that Microsoft's patent licensing agreement with Timeline is valid. The case dates back to 2005 when Timeline sued ProClarity for patent infringement. A few months later, Microsoft acquired ProClarity, and shortly after that, Timeline added Microsoft to the ProClarity suit. In the suit, Timeline claimed to have terminated its contract with Microsoft based on breach of contract and charged the software giant with patent infringement. In the May 29 ruling, the judge decided that Timeline couldn't terminate the licensing agreement based on its breach of contract claims. As a result, the court ruled that the licensing agreement was valid and thus Microsoft wasn't infringing on any patents. Since the ruling, Timeline filed a breach of contract suit against Microsoft in Washington State Superior Court, it said in a June 4 press release. It also may appeal the district court ruling. Microsoft lost an earlier separate battle against Timeline. In 2002, an appeals court ruled that Microsoft couldn't allow its customers to combine their own code with Microsoft products if the added code resulted in a process that infringed Timeline's patent. The Timeline patents relate to technology used in database software, and Microsoft used them in its Small Business Financial Manager product. Timeline recently changed its focus from a developer of software applications to a company dedicated to licensing its intellectual property. Timeline did not return calls seeking comment. Microsoft also has not replied to requests for comment.
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(InfoWorld) - Microsoft suffered a humiliating legal defeat Monday when it lost a court appealÂ to overturn the European Commission's 2004 antitrust ruling against it. The decision took most observers by surprise. The Court of First Instance, Europe's second highest court based in Luxembourg, sided squarely with Europe's top antitrust regulator on the two central issues in the case. Most commentators expected a mixed verdict. While the details of the lengthy court decision are still being examined in their minutiae, some consequences are already clear: The ruling pulls a legal rug from under Microsoft's strategy of bundling software onto its Windows operating system, providing a powerful legal reference point for any future antitrust litigation against the company, and it strengthens the Commission's authority, especially when dealing with antitrust abuse in the fast-moving information technology industry. The Commission was right to rule against Microsoft's strategy of bundling its Media Player application into the Windows operating system, the court concluded, after three years deliberation. Similarly, Microsoft acted illegally by refusing to share the required interoperability information needed by rivals to build server operating systems that work smoothly with Windows, the court said. Microsoft's most senior lawyer, Brad Smith said the court decision was "disappointing." He hasn't decided whether to appeal it to the top court, the Court of Justice. If Microsoft does this, it can only dispute points of law, not facts established in Monday's ruling. Smith said Monday's court ruling has important implications for Microsoft's strategy of bundling together a range of applications with the Windows operating system. This strategy has proved effective in the past. Microsoft eclipsed Netscape in the mid 1990s when it bundled in its Internet Explorer application into the operating system. And RealPlayer dominated the market for streaming media applications until Microsoft started bundling its Media Player into Windows in 1999. The Commission initially hoped to save RealPlayer from Netscape's fate by ordering Microsoft in 2004 to sell a second unbundled version of Windows, but it was too late. The market had tipped irreversibly in favor of Microsoft even before the 2004 ruling. The Commission's remedy to restore competition to the streaming media software market in 2004 was to order Microsoft to sell a second version, later dubbed Windows N, with Media Player stripped out. But the remedy has had no impact on the market. Nevertheless, winning the bundling argument in court was the most important victory of the day for the Commission, and for other companies that believe they suffered from Microsoft's unfair bundling strategy, according to Commission officials and lawyers following the case. "This is an important precedent, not just for this particular product on this particular market," said Competition commissioner Neelie Kroes at a press conference Monday. There isn't a queue of complainants lined up, she said, but she added that "they are welcome." Thomas Vinje, legal counsel for the European Committee for Interoperable Systems, (ECIS) a Commission ally in the case, said the Commission's authority to regulate competition in the IT industry has been strengthened by the court ruling. "It has strengthened their hand," he said, adding that he will encourage the Commission to move swiftly ahead with the antitrust complaint ECIS filed to the European regulator two years ago. However, he dismissed claims made during the day that the ruling would be a threat for all successful companies. "The Microsoft case is very rare in that it concerns a super-dominant company," he said. "The Commission may be emboldened by the endorsement of the court to take action against other companies in the IT industry -- There may be issues to be addressed concerningÂ Google's dominance of search, or with its plans to take over DoubleClick, but they bear little resemblance to the specific issues in the Microsoft case. The only real implications from the Microsoft case are for Microsoft itself," he added.
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WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court is ready to hear from lawyers from Microsoft and AT&T as it considers a long-running patent dispute between the industry giants.
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In a heavy blow to Microsoft&#39;s intellectual property rights, the US Patent and Trademark Office has initially rejected Microsoft&#39;s patent claims on the universally popular FAT (file allocation table) file system.
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A United States appeals court upheld a finding of patent infringement against Research In Motion Ltd. yesterday, but struck down part of the ruling and sent it back to a lower court for further proceedings.
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Microsoft said Thursday that it had settled an eight-year patent dispute relating to a feature that allows embedded links in its browser that resulted in a $521 million jury verdict against it.
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Microsoft is applying for a patent for an operating system that starts out crippled.  You must pay to do things like take the throttle off network speed, disk access, install drivers, install software, and more.  Trust me, I rarely even visit Groklaw, even if this is my second consecutive blog entry with a link to a Groklaw article. My VarLinux.org readers posted the article, A Brave New Modular World, and I had to share it.
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SEATTLE _ Microsoft left its first-ever appearance before the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday encouraged about its chance of winning a case that could have broader implications for patent protection of software sold overseas.
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Don't count your chickens... A landmark court ruling which last year backed the European Commission's last competition action against Microsoft may not be as helpful in its current action as has been widely thought, according to a competition lawyer.â¦
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Microsoft lost a major appeal Wednesday when a European court ruled that the world&#39;s largest software company must comply with sanctions imposed by regulators and strip features from its Windows product.