“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
Apple paid the MP3 licenses and royalties and that is why they went the MP4 route, but AT&T sued, so they went the AAC route.
Tha is why I think Apple is “safe” on this one.
In the Architectural world the Architectural firms change their names every few years so they can’t be sued for bad design. No. Honest! That is the strategy for large architectural firms to avoid litigation.
Apple just changed their name, so…
@ Xisiqo
I don’t think MS “clearly knew” who held the patents to mp3 anymore than the hundreds of others who licensed them from Fraunhofer and Thomson, who (by all accounts I’ve been able to research) are the ones who “clearly” (and who are internationally recogized to) hold the patents to mp3… despite what a U.S. jury has decided.
In respect to patents, there are international aspects to be considered. I think if Alcatel-Lucent tries to collect license fees from companies outside the U.S., they will probably be told to take a hike.
I think all this stems from the fact that AT&T (along with several others, BTW) made some contribution to what would become mp3 back in the early ’90s.
When Lucent was spun off from AT&T, Lucent got IP title to those “contributions,” and IMHO, Alcatel-Lucent decided they had a potential cash cow with the widespread consumer use of mp3.
Pay 1.52 billion.
Cancel or allow?
I think even microshaft will feel that kind of a loss. Thats huge.
Apple is next….
@Robert
Changing the name in itself doesn’t mean anything. You will probably find that the architectural firms set up a new company and moved the assets into this and took their name with them – this is a common ploy to limit liability: the new entity being a different “person” under the law and not responsible for the debts of the old entity…
@NewType
Your comment “This was a bad ruling” is inappropriate.
Courts make decisions on the legal issues – a “bad” ruling would be one that was wrong in law. If a ruling is wrong in law it would likely be won on appeal in a higher court. Since we havent seen any of the evidence and, in any case, most of us are not lawyers, i think it would be safe to say it was probably correct in law.
It remains to be seen whether is will have a bad effect on the market. My personal feeling is that the world is ready for a move away from mp3 to a higher quality codec like AAC.
“Apple paid the MP3 licenses and royalties and that is why they went the MP4 route, but AT&T sued, so they went the AAC route.”
Bzzzzt! Sorry, thanks for playing. Try again at making up things.
MP3 is an abbreviation for MPEG2-Layer3, and it is an audio codec originally designed to go along with the MPEG2 video codec.
AAC is an audio codec designed to go along with the MPEG4 video codec (For some reason they skipped MPEG3, perhaps due to potential confusion with MP3).
There is no “MP4” audio format, although due to the association of AAC with MPEG4, and as a natural successor to MP3, AAC is sometimes called MP4 (iTunes creates unprotected AAC files with a .m4a extension; FairPlay protected AACs are .m4p – not quite “mp4” but close)
Ryan;
Good catch! Interesting how one or two letters can make a world of difference. I really appreciate the extra education.
I was following what was written over on Wikipedia. Ryan, perhaps you could go over there and “correct” the mis-information provided?
BTW, we’ve been using the .m4a format in our AudioCasts for macCompanion in iTunes.
Nice site – pity you have to go to such lengths to moderate it.
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With respect :(, Yoshi.
Could you help me. Innovation has nothing to do with how many R&D;dollars you have. When Apple came up with the Mac, IBM was spending at least 100 times more on R&D;. It’s not about money. It’s about the people you have, how you’re led, and how much you get it.
I am from Micronesia and , too, and now am writing in English, tell me right I wrote the following sentence: “Flea infestations can be stopped without resorting to the use of toxic remedies that.Also see kitten flea control in a nutshell.”
With love :D, Timin.