Microsoft to Pay $1.52 Billion in Patent Suit Damages 170
An anonymous reader writes "A U.S. federal jury found that Microsoft Corp. infringed audio patents held by Alcatel-Lucent and should pay $1.52 billion in damages, Microsoft said Thursday. The news comes after reports that U.S. Supreme Court justices expressed doubts about whether Microsoft Corp. should be liable for infringing AT&T Inc. patents in Windows software sold overseas."
Re:Which way will /. go? (Score:3, Informative)
Anyone still want to claim that it makes sense for MS to be in favour of software patents?
Microsoft and the Law (Score:5, Informative)
What we have learned to date is that Microsoft will never have to pay anything like this kind of penalty. Even if they are guilty, they have already demonstrated their ability to heap appeal on top of appeal until many years from now, technology advancements will have moved the goal posts, effectively rendering the original claim irrelevant.
Their mastery of the legal system is so complete that were Eliot Ness alive today, Microsoft would be the principal nemesis in The Untouchables 2.
It's not over yet (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Microsoft argues that source code isn't patenta (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Which way will /. go? (Score:5, Informative)
You and other slashdot posters can keep saying that, but that doesn't make it true. [advogato.org]
Re:Which way will /. go? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Which way will /. go? (Score:4, Informative)
Yup. Based on last year's gross profit they're going to have to save up for almost 15 days to pay that off. That's gotta hurt. That's like a whole paycheck right down the drain.
Are Microsoft customers protected from Lucent now? (Score:2, Informative)
It's very likely that now Microsoft has a license to use MP3 internally; but no right to sublicense it to end users who may still be liable.
If you think I'm kidding, they've done it before:
http://www.oreillynet.com/cs/user/view/cs_msg/430
Re:Forget about the evilness of MS for a moment... (Score:3, Informative)
Software patents are a huge problem.