James Delahunty
11 Sep 2009 21:08
Microsoft Corp. has dodged paying Alcatel-Lucent damages of $358 million for patent infringement for now. A federal appeals court rules that Microsoft does not have to pay the damages because of errors in how the damages had been calculated.
Alcatel-Lucent had originally said Microsoft's Outlook and other programs illegally infringed on its patent which covers a method of entering information into fields on a computer screen with no Keyboard.
The U.S. District Court jury had determined that damages Microsoft should pay would have to reflect what the company would have paid up front to license the technology. However, the appeals court said that Alcatel-Lucent had failed to prove that its technology was valuable enough to merit royalties of $358 million.
The court judges told a district court to reconsider the penalty, and in the same ruling, affirmed the underlying verdict against Microsoft, which it claimed was backed by substantial evidence. Alcatel-Lucent said it was disappointed with the court's decision.