Microsoft FAT patent shot down
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Microsoft has lost the FAT, and it&#39;s not part of a slimming down regimen. In a stinging defeat, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has declared Microsoft&#39;s File Allocation Table (FAT) file
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The controversial Eolas Technologies patent looks like it is about to be rescinded by the US Patent Office. The office has confirmed that it has rejected all of the 10 patent claims that it re-examined.
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SCO group is going down. Microsoft, Sun, and the greedy investors that abetted SCO in its campaign to loot Unix and Linux vendors and their customers have abandoned ship. Microsoftâs public endorsement of SCOâs legal action against, effectively, Microsoftâs enterprise competitors and their customers, gave SCO the leverage to mug said vendorsâ customers for license fees when vendors refused to drop their wallets in court. Sun and Microsoft animated SCO as the prototypical litigious IP boogeyman in order to terrorize competitorsâ customers into switching to Windows or Solaris to avoid being hauled to court. Thatâs how I laid it out in 2003, and I stand by it now.ADVERTISEMENTNEW IT SERVICES FROM IBM: EASIER TO BUY AND IMPLEMENTDiscover a simpler, more cost-effective way to get the solutions your company needs to grow more flexible and efficient.
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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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IN A preliminary ruling, the US government has rejected Microsoft&#39;s 1996 patent on technology for saving files on computers using easy-to-remember names.
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(InfoWorld) - Microsoft may have to pull its Office suite from the shelves in South Korea as a result of losing a patent lawsuit in that country, according to published reports. Several news outlets reported Monday that a South Korean Supreme Court ruling on Friday refused a request from Microsoft that patents obtained by Hankuk Aviation University professor Lee Keung-Haie in 1997 be nullified. The decision strengthens the case of Lee and the company acting as his agent, called P and IB, which filed for damages against Microsoft in 2000 for infringing on Lee's patents, according to a report by the Agence France-Presse . Now that Microsoft's request has been struck down, P and IB leader Kim Kil-Hae said the company and Lee have a better chance at winning damages in their lawsuit and also in stopping the sale of the version of Office that includes the patented technology, according to a report by the AFP. Lee and P and IB are seeking damages of 70 billion won, or about $75 million. In an e-mailed statement through its public relations firm, Microsoft said it does not anticipate any interruption in the sales of Office in Korea, and is positive about its chance in the current infringement case that is still pending. Lee and P and IB filed suit against Microsoft in 2000 for infringing on Lee's patents for technologies that automatically switch the input mode of Office between the Korean and English languages. That case remains unsettled in an appeals court after Microsoft filed a separate lawsuit attempting to invalidate Lee's patents. The patent dispute is just one of Microsoft's legal woes in South Korea. In May,Â South Korea ruled against MicrosoftÂ in an antitrust case, forcing the company to sell a version of its Windows OS without its media player and instant-messaging programs after finding that their inclusion breached antitrust laws. An antitrust case in Europe also has not gone well for the Redmond, Washington, software vendor. In March 2004, the European Commission ruled that Microsoft must sell Windows without media player software in the European Union to compete fairly with rivals there. The ruling alsoÂ ordered Microsoft to provide informationÂ that allows rival server software vendors to design server products that interoperate well with Windows PCs. Microsoft is still embroiled in its legal battle with the Commission and continues to file documents to prove it is complying with the antitrust ruling. The Commission fined Microsoft $357 million in July for failing to comply with the antitrust order, and could face more fines of up to $3 million per day if it does not meet the Commission's latest deadline to prove compliance.
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You back my patent, I'll back yours. That could be the software giant's motto in its quest for intellectual property.
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The US Patent and Trademark Office has preliminarily rejected a Microsoft Corp. patent on a system for recognizing computer files, a victory for &quot;open source&quot; advocates who believe
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In a preliminary ruling, the government rejected Microsoft Corp.'s 1996 patent on technology for saving files on computers using easy-to-remember names.
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The patent office sided with the Public Patent Foundation, which argued that several examples of so-called &quot;prior art&quot; were in existence when Microsoft sought to patent FAT.
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(InfoWorld) - Computer peripheral maker Belkin said Friday it has settled a patent infringement complaintÂ brought against it by software giant Microsoft. "We are glad to have reached a settlement and we are satisfied with the outcome," said Belkin spokeswoman Melody Chalaban, who declined to provide details of the settlement terms. On Aug. 1,Â Microsoft filed a patent-infringement complaintÂ with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) that said Belkin was importing products that infringed on a Microsoft patent for peripheral device technology. According to Microsoft, Belkin uses a technology called "U2" in several of its mouse products. Microsoft's patented U2 technology enables a peripheral to automatically sense whether the device is being plugged into a PS2 or USB (Universal Serial Bus) port on a computer and then make the connection. Microsoft filed the complaint after failing to reach agreement in licensing discussions with Belkin over more than two years, said Tom Burt, corporate vice president and deputy general counsel for Microsoft, in an e-mail statement when the ITC complaint was filed. Microsoft said it filed the complaint with the ITC rather than in a U.S. court because it wanted to prevent Belkin from bringing infringing products into the U.S. in the first place. Although Belkin is a U.S. company, the products in question are manufactured outside the country, Microsoft said.
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I bought the domain name HeyMicrosoftSueMe.org at the suggestion of Marcel Gagne after posting a blog entry on the topic.  The idea was to ask Linux users to join me in calling Microsoft's bluff.  Let's get the patent infringement claims tried in court and get this over with. Several people talked me out of it.  Fortunately, a lawyer named Christian Einfeldt had the same idea and followed through. Here's a copy of Marcel's entry on the topic from his own blog, with a link to the "Sue me first Microsoft list" in case you want to add your own name. Christof, if you're reading this, you're welcome to the domain name HeyMicrosoftSueMe.org.
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New dual-core processors will make conventional software licensing models obsolete. What's next?
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Microsoft lost its antitrust appeal.  Will this change anything?
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Microsoft has revealed that its patent deal with Linspire doesn&#39;t cover the new version of the GNU General Public License (GPL), the company&#39;s latest effort to distance itself from the GPLv3.
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Deal masks interest in controversial digital distribution patents?
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So, the shape of the Great Battle begins to emerge.  As reported by Fortune magazine, Microsoft's general counsel, Brad Smith, reckons free software infringes on no less than 235 of the company's patents: