On Thursday in San Diego, U.S. District Judge Rudi Brewster dismissed all of Alcatel-Lucent's patent claims against Microsoft Corporation over technology that converts speech into text, meaning that the jury trial set to begin on March 19 will not take place. A week ago a jury found that the world's largest software maker infringed on audio patents held by Alcatel-Lucent and ordered the company to pay $1.52 billion in damages, the largest amount ever in a U.S. patent case.
Alcatel-Lucent said it plans to appeal the ruling. "We've made strong arguments supporting our view. We're comfortable with our chances of success," said Alcatel-Lucent spokeswoman Joan Campion. Microsoft and Alcatel-Lucent are locked in a number of patent disputes including a suit over the video-coding technology in Microsoft's Xbox 360 video game console. "This ruling reaffirms our confidence that once there's judicial review of these complex patent cases, these Alcatel-Lucent claims ultimately won't stand up," said Tom Burt, Microsoft's deputy general counsel.
Link: Forum Discussion (Thanks Boz)
News source: Reuters
Alcatel-Lucent said it plans to appeal the ruling. "We've made strong arguments supporting our view. We're comfortable with our chances of success," said Alcatel-Lucent spokeswoman Joan Campion. Microsoft and Alcatel-Lucent are locked in a number of patent disputes including a suit over the video-coding technology in Microsoft's Xbox 360 video game console. "This ruling reaffirms our confidence that once there's judicial review of these complex patent cases, these Alcatel-Lucent claims ultimately won't stand up," said Tom Burt, Microsoft's deputy general counsel.
Link: Forum Discussion (Thanks Boz) News source: Reuters
I'm with MS on this one.. I thought Fraunhofer-IIS was the right licensor to pay...
Had never even heard of Alcatel having anything to say on mp3 patents before. :p
Now, what would be interesting here wouldn't be just hearing what Alcatel or MS has to say on this, but Fraunhofer!
Governments needs to look at these "Companies" and ban them all if they don't actually offer any REAL products, and no patents aren't a product, they are ideas.
that bought the company that has the shaky claim of patent infringment.
It was never an issue before and no suit was every filed until Lucent came into possesion of the patents.
It is partly the fault of the LAW. Patent law needs a serious overhaul especially in the area of intellectual property.
1-- Statuted to file suit against someone.
2-- Also the Statute of the lack of use of a patent. Someone shouldnt just sit on an idea, and then do nothing with it for 10 years, then cash in on someone that does do something with it.
I think some patents are about 10 to 20 year lifetime with an option to renew. Maybe a 2 or 3 year timeline from filing, people have to produce and market that product or show production rather then sitting on it!
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