Thursday, February 22nd, 2007

Microsoft hit with $1.9B patent verdict


A federal jury in San Diego has ordered Microsoft to pay $1.5 billion to Alcatel-Lucent in a patent dispute over MP3 audio technology used in Windows.

I guess Ballmer should be more concerned about his own company’s violation of IP… heck, maybe this is the IP issue Ballmer was warning people about Linux..  He was just looking out for Linux distros with the MP3 codecs included… what a swell guy.

Aside from Ballmer’s new $1.9B pain, I am really interested in seeing if this brings the long awaited wake-up call to stop propogating everything in MP3 format. It’s essentially a “standard” now and having to pay two companies royalties for the right to include MP3 features could disrupt that. Just think of all the MP3-based products out there and you can imagine the magnitude of this verdict. Should be interesting to see if this is just a spat between the two and it ends here or if Alcatel-Lucent takes this to other MP3 technology vendors. If they do, I’ll bet the MP3 format is dead in 2-3 yrs.

Posted by md on February 22nd, 2007 | Filed in Business, Law, IP, and Standards, Microsoft, Open Source Software | 1 Comment »


One Response to “Microsoft hit with $1.9B patent verdict”

  1. February 22nd, 2007 at 8:28 pm

    cpjackson.co.uk » Blog Archiv » Microsoft found guilty of IP infringement: How ironic said:

    [...] the balmy ballmer situation that I blogged about a day or two ago, and then stumbled on this info: Microsoft hit with $1.9B patent verdict.. (Here’s [...]



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