02-23-2007, 10:48 AM
Quote:Microsoft on Thursday lost the first of six patent lawsuits brought by Paris-based telecom equipment maker Alcatel-Lucent, and a federal district court jury set damages at US$1.5 billion. The Redmond, Wash.-based software maker said the patents in question govern the conversion of audio into the digital MP3 file format on personal computers...
"We think this verdict is completely unsupported by the law or the facts," said Tom Burt, a Microsoft deputy general counsel...
"We believe that we properly licensed MP3 technology from its industry recognized licenser -- Fraunhofer. The damages award seems particularly outrageous when you consider we paid Fraunhofer only $16 million to license this technology."...
full article: http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/nadh...-15B.xhtml