$388 million patent verdict against Microsoft overturned

[The Straight Story]

$388 million patent verdict against Microsoft overturned

A federal court has reversed an earlier ruling that Microsoft's product activation technology infringed on software maker Uniloc's patent, overturning a record $388 million verdict.

Judge William Smith of the US District Court for the District of Rhode Island has overturned a $388 million patent-infringement verdict against Microsoft. A jury had found the company had infringed on a patent held by software maker Uniloc, a Singapore-based security company, sticking Microsoft with the largest patent penalty on record, but the court has now ruled in the software giant's favor. "We are pleased that the court has vacated the jury verdict and entered judgment in favor of Microsoft," a Microsoft spokesperson told Ars.

In April 2009, a US grand jury in Providence, Rhode Island ordered Microsoft to pay Uniloc a patent-law record $388 million for infringing an antipiracy software patent, concluding that Redmond intentionally infringed on Uniloc's patented technology as part of the product activation methods in Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, and Office XP.

Uniloc makes antipiracy tools that require user registration to prevent the same copy of software from being installed on more than one computer. Uniloc claimed that Australian Ric Richardson, who received the patent over 11 years ago, showed his program to Microsoft in 1993 under a pledge that the company would not duplicate it, but that Microsoft did. Microsoft argued that it used a different method for registering software because it found Richardson's software to be useless and that Uniloc's patent (No. 5,490,216) was obvious.

http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2009/09/record-388-million-verdict-against-microsoft-overturned.ars

[ddeclue]

1. The Borg wins again..resistance is futile!