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."
Microsoft argues that source code isn't patentable (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Which way will /. go? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Forget about the evilness of MS for a moment... (Score:5, Interesting)
Microsoft accuses Lucent of deceiving the U.S. Patent & Trademark office by having one of the patents reissued and backdated to 1988, removing it from the scope of the 1989 deal with Fraunhofer.
Playing devil's advocate (Score:1, Interesting)
IMO Alcatel-Lucent have just successfully scammed some quick $$ off MS.
No more Mp3 (Score:4, Interesting)
No! Bad Slashdot! (Score:3, Interesting)
This is a bad thing. B-A-D.
Many, MANY companies have this same deal with Fraunhofer. MS is only the first to be sued. It's very likely that those companies large enough to be worth suing will also be sued in large numbers, after this. The fact that you guys hate MS so much you consider many, many companies getting sued a "haha" matter shows you have a profoundly sick sense of humor.
Re:No more Mp3 (Score:5, Interesting)