“Microsoft Corp. should pay Alcatel- Lucent $1.52 billion, a federal jury said, deciding the world’s biggest software maker used digital music technology without permission and handing down the largest patent ruling in history,” Jeff St.Onge and Bill Callahan report for Bloomberg.
St.Onge and Callahan report, “The San Diego jury said Microsoft infringed two Alcatel- Lucent patents related to the standard for playing music files on a computer. Alcatel-Lucent accused Microsoft of infringing the patents with its Windows Media Player, including the version in the new Vista operating system.”
“The jury found that Alcatel-Lucent is entitled to more than $759 million for each of the two patents found to be infringed. It also upheld the validity of the patents. The jury of eight men and one woman began weighing the case Feb. 15, a day after lawyers made final arguments in a 12-day trial,” St.Onge and Callahan report.
Full article here.
Microsoft. The hits just keep on comin’!
Related articles:
Microsoft settles embarrassing antitrust suit in Iowa – February 14, 2007
Bill Gates unhinged with Apple envy; Microsoft on path to become high profile casualty – February 06, 2007
TIME Magazine: Microsoft’s Windows Vista ‘an embarassment to the good name of American innovation’ – February 02, 2007
No midnight lines for Microsoft’s badly faked Apple Mac OS this time – January 30, 2007
Bill Gates lists Microsoft ‘innovations’ that Apple has offered Mac users for years – January 30, 2007
Pioneer Press: Windows Vista shows ‘Apple is an innovation engine; Microsoft, not so much’ – January 29, 2007
Microsoft: The Redmond Copying Machine – December 20, 2006
Dave Winer: ‘Microsoft isn’t an innovator, and never was – they are always playing catch-up’ – December 01, 2006
Microsoft Windows Vista developers used Apple Macs for inspiration – November 27, 2006
Does Microsoft put drugs in the water supply? – November 19, 2006
Just change
W are witnessing the beginning of the end; the end of the era of micro$haft mediocrity.
That’s a shame.
But watch Bill spin this into a positive story about partnership and innovation through investment.
How will that affect Apple and Quicktime?
Supposedly, windows media player is based on some quicktime code according to some people.
They may recoup that payout before they release their next OS…
max,
$1.52 billion is not “change” to any company, including the scumbags at Microsoft.
MDN MW = “business.” (That must be why they call it “magic.”)
Give the money back to the shareholders as well?
That was the chair budget for the next couple of years!
WMP went from being a piece of shit, to being a costly piece of shit.
Way to go M$ dickheads!
Those Lawyers, must be laffin, I would gladly carry books for 1% of their commisssion
oh yeah… fcuk Minuteflaccid
This makes the $100,000 that Apple paid Creative look like chump change (which is exactly what it was).
Sorry…I meant $100 Million. Either way, it’s still chump change compared to $1.52 Billion.
Hmmmm. I just don’t know. I have a strong feeling that this patent issue is getting out of hand. “I thought of a way to use a machine that computes to calcuclates numbers”. I guess everyone owes me money!! LOL
I totally respect a new idea getting patented, but it is too easy to come up with a “wish” and patent it thru some dummy in the patent office without ever coming up with the details of “HOW” to do it. Its all in the how.
JMHO.
E.
This must be why M$ is abandoning “Plays for Sh!t”
They saw this one commin’ and they wanted to get out of the license.
$1.52 billion, plus (one assumes) costs!!
You probably need to sell about $4 billion worth of Vista to pay for that, so it’s a good job that its had such an enthusiastic reception.
Some years ago MS had to pay apple in a suit. Anyone out there know how much?
AL,
No, WiMP isn’t based on QT. The story is that the guys at Canyon, who did the QT for Windows port on contract to Apple, subsequently wrote Video for Windows on contract to Microsoft, and used much of the QT code in the process. But VfW was allegedly completely rewritten (or at the very least, its name was completely changed) when it turned into WMP.
Of course, it still sucks.
“Alcatel-Lucent’s victory also may clear the way for legal actions against hundreds of companies that rely on MP3, the standard for playing music and sound files on a computer, mobile phone or digital-music player.”
Isn’t this bad news for Apple?
You wonder if M$ are ever going to pay.
How many years have they been arguing with the EU over the fine for monopolistic practice.
Will this turn out to be another ‘award’ similar to the tabacco companies who seem to daily get a 700 Billion dollar claim for some poor John who has cancer and didn’t realise that it was the 40 a day he shoved into his fat gob that was doing the damage because 20 years ago there wasn’t a warning written on the side of the packet in swahili to tell not to be a stupid twat if he had any ambition of growing old.
A huge spike in activity in Redmond,Washington as Steve Ballmer’s new start-up throwingchairs.com sells 100,000 chairs to Microsoft.
@R2 –
Maybe, maybe not. Is AAC based on MP3?
RC,
This was a “decision” which was made by a jury, not by the parties involved. MS still has not been granted the license for the patent that they violated. MS must continue to fight and pay, and fight and pay, and fight and pay……. if it wants to use the technology. This will continue until an “agreement” is made between the parties or the “decision” is overturned, otherwise they can’t use the technology.
On the other hand, Apple paid 100 M to use technology which it deemed worthy of the price. There is no fight and pay involved… the “agreement” has already been finalized.
These are hard days for MS.
Sympathetic, maybe, but I think not.
Apple already paid to use the technology? They’re all squared away?
Sorry for the confusion…. I was referring to the agreement between Apple and Creative.
Actually this may be a good thing for Apple…. oh sorry, we can no longer support MP3 on the iPod due to licensing restrictions, but it’s not really our fault. How about trying a better standard?
MP4…. err… we mean “AAC”.
Wow!!!!
Thats a big payout. Will Microsoft have to stop promoting Media Player now?
What does that mean for DRM?
And for Apple?
Apple have AAC instead of Mp3 for their iPods but they do support mp3…