Microsoft Must Pay Alcatel $70 Million in Patent Damages, U.S. Jury Says
By Bill Callahan - Jul 29, 2011 5:28 PM ET Fri Jul 29 21:28:36 GMT 2011
Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) must pay $70 million for infringing an Alcatel-Lucent patent used in versions of Microsoft’s Outlook program and two other applications, a federal jury in San Diego said today.
Alcatel-Lucent, France’s largest maker of telecommunications equipment, asked for as much as $75 million in damages. Microsoft’s lawyers asked jurors to limit the award to $5 million.
The technology, called the “Day patent,” was described in court during the as involving a touch-screen form entry. Microsoft argued it’s simply a “date-picker” function and isn’t used with e-mail, the most popular function on Outlook. Paris-based Alcatel-Lucent described the technology as a tool that “plays a central role in the entire operation” of Outlook.
“Alcatel-Lucent is obviously pleased with the verdict and the jury’s recognition in the value of the Day patent that Microsoft infringed,” Luke Dauchot, a lawyer for Alcatel-Lucent, said after the verdict.
A different jury in San Diego in 2008 found that Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft had infringed the patent and awarded $358 million in damages. An appeals court, upholding the infringement verdict, overturned the damages award, finding the calculation lacked sufficient evidentiary support. The case was sent back for retrial on damages only.
‘Genuine Apportionment’ “We continue to maintain that current law requires a genuine apportionment of damages when the infringement is directed to a small feature of a feature-rich product,” David Howard, Microsoft’s deputy general counsel, said in an e-mail today. “We are reviewing the verdict in that light and considering next steps.”
Dauchot told the jury in his closing argument the patent was “pervasive in the affected programs and helped provide “an easy, fast, reliable way of using Outlook.”
He told jurors Outlook wouldn’t have been as popular without the patent’s technology and that “Microsoft’s own survey showed that Outlook is the most frequently used Microsoft Office application by consumers.”
Microsoft attorney Juanita Brooks told jurors that Alcatel- Lucent is trying to win money for a patent that is of little significance to Microsoft because the company’s patent portfolio was not making enough money.
The case is Lucent Technologies Inc. v. Gateway Inc., 07- cv-2000 U.S. District Court, Southern District of California (San Diego).
To contact the reporter on this story: Bill Callahan in San Diego at callahan@san.rr.com.
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Microsoft to pay Alcatel $70M in patent ruling
by Josh Lowensohn
A federal jury in San Diego today ruled that Microsoft must pay $70 million in damages to telecommunications infrastructure maker Alcatel-Lucent, stemming from a patent infringement claim that dates back to 2003.
The patent, which was originally applied for by engineers at AT&T, covers a method of entering information into fields on a computer screen without using a keyboard. Lucent initially sued computer makers Gateway and Dell for infringing on the patent in 2002, with Microsoft intervening.
An earlier trial involving the same parties found Microsoft guilty of infringing on that patent in the company's Outlook e-mail software, Windows Mobile, and Microsoft Money--a ruling that would have cost Microsoft more than $500 million in damages. Microsoft appealed the decision, and the damages were recalculated.
An Alcatel-Lucent spokesperson said the company was pleased with the ruling.
"We are very pleased that the jury recognized that Alcatel-Lucent is entitled to fair compensation for Microsoft's use of this patent. We appreciate the time and effort and thoughtful consideration that the jury gave to this matter. Alcatel-Lucent views its intellectual property as a vital asset, and we work hard to preserve and defend that asset," the spokesperson said.
David Howard, Microsoft's corporate vice president and deputy general counsel of litigation, noted that the company would be reviewing the verdict.
"Today's verdict reflects a positive trend in the law of patent damages stemming from the Federal Circuit's earlier opinion in this and other cases," Howard said in a statement. "However, we continue to maintain that current law requires a genuine apportionment of damages when the infringement is directed to a small feature of a feature-rich product, and we are reviewing the verdict in that light and considering next steps."
This particular patent infringement case is just the latest in a long series between the two companies. A 2003 case had Alcatel targeting PC makers Gateway and Dell for using MP3 audio technologies. Like in this case, Microsoft intervened, though came out the victor. Microsoft was also the target of a U.S. International Trade Commission patent infringement complaint by Alcatel over technology to identify and affiliate a user in a telephone network. The ITC ended up siding with Alcatel-Lucent on that. A third patent case, involving digital speech compression technology as well as a computer communications patent was met with a mixed ruling in 2008.
Bloomberg first reported on the ruling today.
Read more: news.cnet.com |
