A US court of appeals has overturned a judgment in a patent dispute case of Alcatel-Lucent vs. Microsoft. The case, based around a patent for entering information into the calendar on Microsoft Outlook, originally ruled that Microsoft did infringe on this patent and awarded $358 million dollars to Alcatel-Lucent. The appeals court overturned the ruling by saying that "Microsoft did indirectly infringe Alcatel's patents, but said the damages awarded against the firm were not justified and must be retried" according to Yahoo.
The result is the damages that were initially awarded to Alcatel-Lucent were unjustly high and that a more reasonable amount needs to be administered. The two companies will now head back to court to try and determine the appropriate damages.
This is the final case against Microsoft from Alcatel-Lucent which was a part of a multi-billion patent dispute. The majority of the dispute was settled last year for $512 million dollars.
Well, ouch, already.
Well, you can't argue that patents on software makes sense. It does nothing but restrict the industry. Customers do not buy Outlook solely for how you enter information in a calendar, nor will they buy Alcatel-Lucent's product solely for this reason. They buy software because of what it does as a whole. Rather than patent every ridiculous thing you do, and suing when someone does something even remotely similar (Even if the product is completely different), these companies should be working to make products that customers want.
Yeah? I patented a way of "displaying information in an application window"... Let the law suits begin!
I'm tellin' Google on ya. That's what their home page patent description is in its entirety.
Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer! Classic.
Yep. Why work for money when you can take someone else's?
I will charge everyone a dollar a year to license. That should net me about 100 million or more a year. Once I have enough money I am going to buy Canada and evict everyone the spend my days enjoying the piece and quiet.
There's already only 3.5 of us per square kilometer in Canada (according to wikipedia)...
I'd go somewhere warmer, personally. This summer lasted maybe 10 days.
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