Microsoft wins partial victory in lawsuit battle
updated 03:40 pm EST, Fri March 2, 2007
MS Lawsuit Dismissed
US federal judge Rudi Brewster today dismissed a controversial Alcatel-Lucent patent claim against Microsoft regarding speech recognition. Issuing a summary judgment, Brewster said that Microsoft hadn't infringed on the French-American company's patents, saving the former from a potentially damaging court case. Alcatel-Lucent said it would appeal the decision.
The reprieve may offer a glimmer of hope to Microsoft. The company was handed a defeat in an MP3 lawsuit just a week before but could now point to today's win as a reason to overturn the earlier decision.
"This ruling reaffirms our confidence that once there's judicial review of these complex patent cases, these Alcatel-Lucent claims ultimately won't stand up," said Microsoft's deputy general counsel Tom Burt.
Regardless of the final outcome of the speech recognition suit, Microsoft still faces a number of other patent challenges from Alcatel-Lucent, including ones relating to the Xbox 360 console.
Many in the industry have been alarmed by Alcatel-Lucent's earlier $1.52 billion victory, which could place almost every hardware or software developer at risk of having to pay royalties a second time or else face their own lawsuits. Virtually all companies legally using the MP3 standard have permission to do so through the format's co-developer, The Fraunhofer Institute.
