Microsoft loses appeal, owes Alcatel-Lucent $512M in patent damages

Sorting out the various Microsoft / Alcatel-Lucent patent infringement cases isn't exactly fun or easy, but here's another Post-It for that chart we know you're keeping at home: US District Judge Marilyn Huff has just upheld an earlier $368M damages ruling against Microsoft, and calculated that MS owes A-L a total of $512M for infringing those video-encoding patents that are obviously still so relevant to the proceedings in these cases. That's not the same as that earlier ruling that A-L hadn't infringed an MS patent, mind you -- and Redmond says it's going to appeal this decision as well, so this giant mess isn't going anywhere soon. Hey, guys? We're betting that working out a cross-licensing agreement would be way cheaper than all these legal fees you're racking up, you know? Just a thought. Okay, keep fighting. We totally care.

[Minilap @ Jun 20th 2008 9:26PM]

All this for some fast-forward and rewind functions in online video streams?

[bob e @ Jun 20th 2008 9:28PM]

Thats ok, they just saved 45 billion on the failed Yahoo takeover. What's a paltry .5 bill.

[Anthony @ Jun 20th 2008 9:59PM]

I totally agree. How much must they be paying Mr Burn's army of laywers to keep fighting this? At some point it must be damn near the cost of paying the fine.

Suck it up MS- you lose that amount of money in your couch each month.

[Chuckles McGee @ Jun 21st 2008 12:33AM]

I think Microsoft products lost their appeal many years ago.

[phanbouy @ Jun 20th 2008 9:44PM]

damn...that's totally gonna lower their market cap to $548.3 billion

[DefPo3t @ Jun 20th 2008 10:14PM]

...only $548.3 billion : ( come one microsoft you have to do better than that.

[Danakin @ Jun 20th 2008 9:55PM]

Sucks for them.

[Kaiser-Machead @ Jun 20th 2008 9:58PM]

Does Alcatel-Lucent actually make money outside of the courthouse? Didn't they also get money out of Microsoft over the mp3 codec? Can someone enlighten me? I'm having trouble getting the word PATENT-TROLL out of my head.

[Matt @ Jun 21st 2008 8:56AM]

80,000 employees seems like a lot to be supported by nothing but patent trolling.

[garci @ Jun 21st 2008 12:05PM]

well over 50% of all ADSL lines -and variations- in the world come from ALU. The industry's first -and only- 100Gigabit/s per linecard router. 80.000 employees as mentioned... The world's most deployed IPTV video solution... #1 in market share in ATM switches and techology leader in Optical networks....

not to mention a tiny small insignificant thing called "Bell Labs"... out of which things like the transistor were invented..

Just wondering.. maybe they ARE indeed defending the patents... but they were not created out of thin air...

Yet irony has it... ALU is the sole distributor / integrator of Microsoft's Mediaroom IPTV software which uses the patents in question...

My 2 cents..

As a disclaimer... i do work for ALU.

[Puntachu @ Jun 21st 2008 12:27PM]

Another ALU employee here. Gotta say it; though it may seem insignificant at first glance, the company is much bigger than most realize. It's not patent-trolling, its a real defense of their own IP. It's also not nearly their only income.

[Steve @ Jun 20th 2008 10:16PM]

Microsoft has been losing appeal for a while....

[John @ Jun 20th 2008 10:21PM]

Microsoft can afford to fight this as long as there's somewhere to fight it. Maybe they're playing the odds that Alcatel-Lucent will go out of business before they run out of courts.

[CosterMonger @ Jun 20th 2008 10:24PM]

Microsoft should have just bought out Alcatel-Lucent.

[onin @ Jun 20th 2008 11:15PM]

That's not actually a bad Idea. lol

[Reader @ Jun 21st 2008 2:57AM]

That's pretty true, probably cheaper.

[Richard @ Jun 21st 2008 3:44AM]

Wont happen, Alcatel - Lucent in 2007 had a US$27.7 billion dollar turn over with a 77,000 staff in 130 countries. People keep thinking Microsoft is a big player but compared to Telecommunications or Energy (Energy = US$520 trillion dollars) it's lunch money.

[John @ Jun 21st 2008 10:56AM]

ALU has a market cap of about 9 billion.

[Mark @ Jun 28th 2008 2:47PM]

Actually... ALU has a market cap of 13.3 billion - still it is lunchmoney for Microsoft. That's less than Microsoft's annual profit. Could swallow em up without a hiccup.

[disophisis @ Jun 21st 2008 12:23AM]

512MB in patent damages.

[fred @ Jun 21st 2008 7:02AM]

big time patent trolling.

[slaphappy @ Jun 21st 2008 9:37AM]

I think you failed to calculate the potential cost savings Microsoft could obtain should they succeed in their appeal, Nilay. Granted, as an attorney I'm a little biased on the subject, but I believe that litigating can be doubly beneficial: In the first place, if they succeed their savings are obvious (i.e. no payment). But, even if they fail, there is a chance that either the appellate decision (should one be written) could contain language which will make it more difficult to file a patent infringement claim in the future (admittedly, not likely) AND they also send a message to the many patent trolls out there that they will fight these types of cases. This has the added benefit of potentially warding off future litigation. Many of the corporations I have worked with have followed this logic and have seen a demonstrable decrease in their patent infringement claims.

[Maverick Saturn @ Jun 21st 2008 11:03AM]

Meh, this is only a tickle to Microsoft, hardly anything for them to worry about.

[ethana2 @ Jun 21st 2008 12:02PM]

The joys of proprietary codecs..
Vorbis+Dirac for the win!

[thedesolate1 @ Jun 21st 2008 2:23PM]

Fuck this! Im concerned about the Viacom Vs Youtube lawsuit.... This doesnt even put a dent on microsoft. They get hit with anti trust fines that are bigger than this all the time. lol It doesnt seem to be stopping them from assimilating everyone into Winborg....

[Fusion Fuzo @ Jun 21st 2008 2:56PM]

microsoft should buy the company then put it out of business, it would work out better for microsoft

[CF @ Jun 22nd 2008 6:46AM]

"If you can't beat em, steal from them, if you can't steal from them, buy them, if you can buy them - kill them".

Spoken like a true a Microsoft employee.

[Jeff @ Jun 22nd 2008 1:17PM]

didn't Microsoft lose it's appeal a while ago?

har har.

[Californian @ Jun 22nd 2008 3:02PM]

That must be because they were using AI Attorneys who only had 512 MB of RAM, so they couldn't run Vista to get the job done.