A US federal jury on July 29 ordered Microsoft to pay $70 million to French telecom company Alcatel-Lucent in a patent infringement case. The US software giant had been ordered to pay $358 million to Alcatel-Lucent by a different court but the damages award was thrown out on appeal.
The US appeals court upheld the lower court's ruling that Microsoft had infringed a patent involved with selecting the date in Outlook and other programs but asked for a recalculation of the damages in the case.
The new jury, sitting in the US District Court for the Southern District of California, ruled on July 29 that Microsoft should pay $70 million for infringing a patent held by Lucent Technologies. Microsoft was found to have infringed the Lucent patent between January 2003 and December 2006 in versions of Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Money and Windows Mobile.
The firm then known only as Lucent filed a 15-patent suit in 2003 against computer makers Dell and Gateway for allegedly selling machines with Microsoft software that used Lucent technology without permission.
Microsoft weighed into the case to protect its partnerships with computer makers and to stop the litigation from being broadened to other companies using Microsoft software.
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