A U.S. federal jury has ruled that Microsoft Corp. infringed two audio patents held by Alcatel-Lucent and it must pay $1.52 billion in damages. Interestingly, if the verdict would be upheld on appeal, that would be marked as the largest patent judgment on record. However, Microsoft has said the verdict is unsupported by the law and that it had already licensed the technology in question from Germany’s Fraunhofer. The company is now planning to first ask the trial judge to knock down the ruling and will appeal if necessary.
Alcatel-Lucent had accused the world’s biggest software company of violating patents related to standards used for playing MP3 digital music files. The Windows Media Player software of Microsoft plays audio files using MP3, the most widespread process of distributing music on the Internet. Interestingly, if the ruling stands even after appeal, it would have sweeping implications for many technology companies involved in digital music. Apple and many other companies that make products that play MP3 files could also face demands to pay royalties to Alcatel.
Originally Alcatel-Lucent had claimed $4.5 billion in damage for violating patents. However, the court did not support its claim that Microsoft had willfully violated the patents, which could shot up the compensation amount by three times.
Moreover, Microsoft has said the award could be roughly be slashed by half since the case is related to overseas sales depending on the outcome of a patent case being heard by the U.S. Supreme Court, which involves Microsoft and AT&T. The high court is considering whether firms should be held accountable for damages in U.S. patent cases for violating software distributed overseas.
