Microsoft signs patent deal with JVC
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In its latest deal, Microsoft lands a deal with the Japanese consumer electronics deal. Microsoft will get an undisclosed amount of revenue from the agreement.
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A US jury found that Microsoft infringed audio patents held by the world's biggest software maker Alcatel-Lucent.   Microsoft has been ordered to pay Pounds 778m in damages, however the firm says it may appeal the ruling.   It says the verdict is unsupported by the law or the facts.
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Microsoft and entertainment broadcaster Viacom have agreed to a five-year deal to share content and partner on advertising initiatives, the companies announced Wednesday.It&#39;s the latest agreement between content and technology companies seeking to make money by mixing premium content with advertising on the Web. The two companies valued the deal at $500 million.Microsoft will have a nonexclusive license to use TV programs and other content from Viacom, which owns MTV Networks, Comedy Central, BET (Black Entertainment Television) and Paramount Pictures, among others. The content will appear on Microsoft&#39;s MSN Web site, as well as through its Internet-connected XBox 360 games system.Viacom will also use Microsoft&#39;s Atlas AdManager digital advertising technology for its U.S. Web sites. The technology came from&#160;Microsoft&#39;s $6 billion acquisition of aQuantive, which was completed in August. AdManager can serve graphical and video ads on Web sites and has ad reporting and management features.Microsoft will also have an exclusive right to sell some display advertising inventory on Viacom&#39;s sites, and both companies will share the revenue.Microsoft and Viacom previously worked together on MTV&#39;s&#160;Urge digital music store, which was closed&#160;in August after low interest.In March,&#160;Viacom filed a $1 billion suit against Google&#39;s YouTube&#160;video service for displaying clips the network owns that were posted by users without permission.&#160;
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SBC said it signed a 10-year, $400 million agreement with Microsoft to provide next-generation television services using Microsoft&#39;s TV internet protocol television edition software platform.
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Two of the world&#39;s consumer electronics giants, Samsung Electronics and Sony, have signed a cross-license agreement detailing mutual usage of patents across major product lines owned by the two companies.
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A seemingly simple case regarding whether Microsoft had the right to replicate speech recognition software it had licensed -- or rather, thought it had licensed -- from AT&T, and then sell that software abroad as a component of Windows Vista, has exploded into what is now extremely likely to become a landmark case in US patent and copyright law.
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Microsoft Corp won an estimated $500 million, 5-year Internet advertising deal with MTV Networks owner Viacom Inc, giving the software giant a boost against rivals Google Inc and Yahoo Inc.
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US software giant Microsoft agreed Tuesday to set up a joint venture with two South Korean firms for a foray into the country's nascent Internet TV market, officials said.
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Texas Pacific Group  and Cerberus  have submitted bids for control of struggling consumer electronics firm JVC , sources familiar with the matter said on Monday.
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Blu-ray on Wednesday said Microsoft  Corp. MSFT.O has won the DVD technology group's backing of a  video compression standard for new high-definition discs,  marking an advance for the software maker in an emerging  consumer electronics arena.
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(InfoWorld) - Microsoft won a round in its battle with patent licensing company Timeline. On May 29, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington dismissed Timeline's accusations of patent infringement, ruling that Microsoft's patent licensing agreement with Timeline is valid. The case dates back to 2005 when Timeline sued ProClarity for patent infringement. A few months later, Microsoft acquired ProClarity, and shortly after that, Timeline added Microsoft to the ProClarity suit. In the suit, Timeline claimed to have terminated its contract with Microsoft based on breach of contract and charged the software giant with patent infringement. In the May 29 ruling, the judge decided that Timeline couldn't terminate the licensing agreement based on its breach of contract claims. As a result, the court ruled that the licensing agreement was valid and thus Microsoft wasn't infringing on any patents. Since the ruling, Timeline filed a breach of contract suit against Microsoft in Washington State Superior Court, it said in a June 4 press release. It also may appeal the district court ruling. Microsoft lost an earlier separate battle against Timeline. In 2002, an appeals court ruled that Microsoft couldn't allow its customers to combine their own code with Microsoft products if the added code resulted in a process that infringed Timeline's patent. The Timeline patents relate to technology used in database software, and Microsoft used them in its Small Business Financial Manager product. Timeline recently changed its focus from a developer of software applications to a company dedicated to licensing its intellectual property. Timeline did not return calls seeking comment. Microsoft also has not replied to requests for comment.
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TOKYO -- Lawyers for Microsoft met with investigators from the Japan Fair Trade Commission (JFTC) on Friday to clarify the commission's position in an ongoing dispute over Microsoft's software licensing practices in Japan.
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Patent cross-licence deal cover all but cutting-edge techs
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Flash memory vendors reach a settlement in their patent dispute and sign a cross-licensing deal.
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A California-based software company has filed a patent infringement suit against Microsoft over two patents that enable the creation of virtual private networks.
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Microsoft Corp. has signed another Linux distributor to a patent-licensing and collaboration deal similar to the one it struck with Novell Inc. last year.
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(InfoWorld) - Microsoft has agreed to settle a multimillion dollar lawsuit brought by thousands of Iowa consumers and businesses who say the company's anticompetitive practices forced them to pay inflated prices for software including Microsoft's Windows, Word and Excel. Seven years after it was filed, the class-action suit finally began on Dec. 1 in a Des Moines, Iowa, courtroom. Microsoft agreed to settle before the jury reached a verdict. Neither the company nor the plaintiffs' law firm announced the amount that Microsoft agreed to pay, but the suit had originally asked for $329 million in damages. In a statement, Microsoft said the terms of the settlement would not be disclosed until judges approve the agreement during hearings in April and August. The case covers Iowa residents who bought certain OS and application software between May 18, 1994, and June 30, 2006. Microsoft also agreed to pay half of any unclaimed proceeds to the Iowa Department of Education, to be used for bridging the digital and technical divide in Iowa schools through the purchase of computer hardware and software, according to a statement by Rich Wallis, associate general counsel for Microsoft. Customers across the U.S. filed dozens of antitrust class-action suits against Microsoft, but this was only the second one to go to trial, according to a statement by the plaintiffs' law firm, Zelle, Hofmann, Voelbel, Mason and Gette. Microsoft also agree to settle a Minnesota case for $182 million before it reached a verdict. In 2001, Microsoft agreed to settle a lawsuit brought by the U.S. Department of Justice and the attorneys general for 19 states, the company said. Microsoft has also reached settlements with three more state governments. Whereas all those cases alleged that Microsoft harmed competition by including certain applications in its OS (thus essentially barring other software vendors from the market), the Iowa and Minnesota cases allege that Microsoft used its enormous market share to overcharge consumers. The only remaining private class-action lawsuit of that type is in Mississippi, according to Microsoft. Microsoft has denied overcharging those customers. "During our opening this week, we showed the real reasons for Microsoft's success. We demonstrated that the plaintiffs' core allegations in this case are decades old, long resolved and have no impact on the issues in this case," Wallis said when the Iowa case opened in December. "The majority of the plaintiffs' claims predate the class period in this case. The allegations that came afterward were addressed by the government case eight years ago. Microsoft accepted responsibility, changed its practices, and to this day we continue to live and work under a consent decree." The Microsoft operating systems covered in this case include MS-DOS, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 98 Second Edition, Windows Millennium Edition, Windows for Workgroups, Windows NT Workstation, Windows 2000 and Windows XP. The applications include Word, Excel and Office versions designed for computers with the above MS-DOS or Windows operating systems. Â