Microsoft hit with $1.5B US patent penalty

[Lise]

Well, for those who just love to see Microsoft in trouble.

  [FONT size=5]Microsoft hit with $1.5B US patent penalty[/FONT]

 Microsoft Corp. must pay $1.5 billion US for violating two patents connected with converting audio signals into the digital MP3 format, a U.S. jury ruled Thursday.

 The federal jury in San Diego, Calif., said Microsoft must pay the damages to equipment maker Alcatel-Lucent SA.

 "We think this verdict is completely unsupported by the law or the facts," Microsoft lawyer Tom Burt said in a statement. The company is expected to appeal.

 Microsoft has put MP3 conversion technology into its Windows operating system, so the finding could affect the heart of its business.

 Lucent, which was taken over by Alcatel in 2006, filed 15 claims involving MP3 encoding and decoding systems in 2003 against computer makers Dell Inc. and Gateway Inc.

 Microsoft added itself as a defendant, saying the patents were closely related to Windows.

 [FONT size=1]More: [/FONT][A href="http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2007/02/22/microsoft-lucnet.html"][FONT size=1]http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2007/02/22/microsoft-lucnet.html[/FONT][/A]

[Devil]

I guess that would equal to about 5 minutes of pay for Gates.

  just curious, why are you happy to see them in trouble? I am not judging either, just curious.

[TehBorken]

 Devil wrote:  [div style="font-style: italic;"]just curious, why are you happy to see them in trouble? I am not judging either, just curious.[/div]
 Microsoft has been getting away with murder for decades- they're predatory and have taken lying, cheating, and stealing to new highs. It's practically an art form for them. They make shitty software that has helped bring the internet to its knees (hello trojans, viruses, and malware!), and are now hot on the path of DRM and a myriad of other hienous things. And those are just the ones that come to mind first.

[Devil]

Wow! The Devil (not me, the real Devil), is smiling hey!?

What is also bad, who is their competition?

[kingy]

cant blame microsoft on this one. it sounds like other companies will be next, apple, intel, sony. i guess once they get past microsoft, the rest will be pretty easy.