Microsoft gets big patent verdict overturned
Today (September 29) a Federal court reversed an earlier ruling that Microsofts activation technology for their products infringed on another company’s patent. This ruling resulted in the overturning of a $388 million verdict.
The Federal court vacated the earlier decision and decided in favor of Microsoft.
“We are pleased that the court has vacated the jury verdict and entered judgment in favor of Microsoft,” Microsoft spokesman Kevin Kutz said in a statement.
Tuesday’s ruling is the latest twist in a case that has had plenty of them. Microsoft initially won a summary judgment ruling, which would have ended the case in its favor, but Uniloc appealed that ruling and a federal appeals court last year ruled that the case needed to go to trial with regard to two counts.
The victory in the Uniloc case comes as Microsoft is awaiting the result of an appeal in another patent case in which the custom XML feature in recent versions of Word was found to infringe on patents held by Canada’s I4i. If it fails in its appeal bid, Microsoft faces damages of more than $200 million in that case as well as an injunction that would halt sales of word with the infringing feature.
