Andre Yoskowitz
5 Jun 2008 22:51
In the third of five lawsuits brought forth against Microsoft by Alcatel-Lucent SA, a federal jury has ruled that the Microsoft Xbox 360 console does not violate any patents held my Alcatel-Lucent and threw the case out.
The technologies company had wanted $420 million USD in damages. On the other side however, Microsoft had counter-sued for $11.5 million USD in damages, claiming that Alcatel-Lucent had infringed one of their patents.
The jury ruled that "one of Microsoft's patents was invalid and found that Alcatel-Lucent didn't violate another four of the company's patents."
Last year, in the first of the five trials, a jury ruled that Microsoft's Windows Media Player "infringed Alcatel-Lucent's patents for the MP3 digital-audio standard" and awarded the latter company a huge $1.52 billion USD settlement. The verdict however is now on appeal and it appears the damages award will be lessened.
Two months ago, another federal jury awarded Alcatel-Lucent $368 million USD for "Microsoft's infringement of its patents for touch-screen form entry and use of a computer stylus."