Judge rules for Microsoft in Alcatel-Lucent suit
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A U.S. federal judge dismissed  Alcatel-Lucent's  patent claim against Microsoft  Corp.  over technology that converts speech into text,  the two companies said on Friday.
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Judge rules the Windows maker did not infringe on a speech-recognition patent; Alcatel-Lucent plans to appeal.
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By LAURENCE FROST  PARIS - Alcatel's purchase of U.S. rival Lucent Technologies Inc.
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(InfoWorld) - Alcatel SA and Lucent Technologies Inc.'s plan to form a global communications equipment giant may run into a roadblock next week in a state court in New Jersey. The companies face a showdown Sept. 6 with shareholders who want to postpone Lucent's Sept. 7 shareholder meeting on the merger as they pursue lawsuits to block it. The Superior Court of New Jersey in Union County is set to hear arguments that day on whether to grant an injunction sought in a proposed class-action suit, Resnick vs. Lucent Technologies Inc. On Thursday, the plaintiffs in another suit, filed in New York, agreed to join in on that hearing. Alcatel and Lucent announced in April that they had agreed to merge into a single company, based in Paris, that would have about US$25 billion in annual revenue. Lucent has struggled in the wake of the post-2000 telecom crash, and the deal is also seen as an outgrowth of consolidation among the carriers that buy from big equipment companies such as Alcatel and Lucent. But the merger, now heading for votes by shareholders in both companies, has been criticized and still faces some hurdles. The stocks of both companies have fallen since the deal was announced, and some investment firms have spoken out against the merger. The European Commission and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission have both approved the deal, but it still needs approval from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States. Both companies have scheduled shareholder meetings on Sept. 7 to vote on the deal. In May, the Asa R. Maley Trust sued Lucent and several of its executives in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, alleging they made a deal that would benefit executives and hurt shareholders. The plaintiffs sought class-action status. "In essence, the proposed Acquisition is the product of a hopelessly flawed process that was designed to ensure the sale of Lucent to one buyer, on terms preferential to Alcatel and to subvert the interests of plaintiff and the other public stockholders of Lucent," the plaintiffs said in their complaint. On Thursday, the attorneys in the Maley case agreed to serve as co-counsel for the plaintiffs in the similar Resnick case and will submit their papers for the Sept. 6 hearing in New Jersey. Lucent is based in Murray Hill, New Jersey. In a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing on Tuesday, Lucent said the Resnick suit was without merit and it has substantial defenses to the claims. In a response to the Maley case earlier this month, the company told the New York court that the Maley case should be dismissed.
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A U.S. federal jury found that Microsoft Corp infringed on audio patents held by Alcatel-Lucent and should pay $1.52 billion in damages, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday.
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(InfoWorld) - A judge in a San Diego court late Thursday dismissed one of several patent claims Alcatel-LucentÂ has made against Microsoft in several high-profile cases against the vendor, but that does not mean the software company is out of the woods yet. According to Microsoft spokesman Jack Evans, a judge in the U.S. District Court in San Diego ruled that Microsoft does not infringe a patent for speech-recognition technology asserted by Alcatel-Lucent. This is the only patent that was to be considered during a second trial in the series of claims, which had been scheduled in San Diego on March 19, he said. That trial has now been cancelled. Last week, a jury in the first of what had been six separate patent-infringement casesÂ ordered Microsoft to pay $1.5 billionÂ in damages to Alcatel-Lucent for infringing on patents for MP3 encoding and decoding technology. It was believed to be the largest patent-infringement damage award in history in the case that the then Lucent Technologies first filed against Microsoft and partners Dell and Gateway in 2003. Many believe the decision could put other companies that use MP3 technology at risk for patent-infringement claims from Alcatel-Lucent. The next and third case dealing with Alcatel-Lucent's patent-infringement claims, which focuses on user-interface technology and lists Microsoft, Dell, and Gateway as defendants, is scheduled to be held May 21, Evans said. Three other trials on Alcatel-Lucent patent-infringement claims will follow this year, with Microsoft being listed as defendants in two of those. The Alcatel-Lucent suit is not the only major patent case Microsoft is currently dealing with. Microsoft presented opening arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court last week in a six-year patent dispute with AT&T.
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A U.S. court has ruled that Dell Inc.   personal-organizer products did not infringe a patent  held by Alcatel-Lucent , according to a court  document filed online on Thursday.
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A court will rule on Microsoft's challenge to an order that that imposed hundreds of millions of dollars of fines for what the regulators said was anti-competitive activity.
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Shareholders of Alcatel SA and Lucent Technologies Inc. approved the companies' merger plansÂ Thursday, clearing one of the last hurdles to a mammoth consolidation in the communications equipment business.
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A federal judge ruled against Microsoft on Wednesday in a patent suit challenging &quot;AutoPlay&quot; technology included in recent versions of Microsoft Windows.
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Nokia  won a round in one  of its many patent battles with chip maker Qualcomm Inc   as a judge with the U.S. International Trade  Commission ruled for the mobile telephone maker on Wednesday.
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A judge in a San Diego court late Thursday dismissed one of several patent claims Alcatel-LucentÂ has made against Microsoft in several high-profile cases against the vendor, but that does not mean the software company is out of the woods yet.
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Microsoft, backed by the US government and heavyweight corporations, took its patent battle with telecommunications giant AT and T to the Supreme Court Wednesday, in a case that has wide implications for US firms doing business abroad.
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PARIS, June 22  /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) today announced it has been selected by Vodafone Portugal for the implementation of a triple play-capable network solution to provide DSL- based services.
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A San Francisco judge ordered Microsoft Corp. (MSFT.O: Quote, Profile, Research) to pay lawyers involved in its $1.1 billion class action settlement $100 million in legal fees, less than
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(InfoWorld) - A former Alcatel executive has pleaded guilty to paying more than $2.5 million in bribes to secure a telephone contract with Costa Rica's state telecommunications agency, the U.S. Department of Justice said Thursday. Christian Sapsizian pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy and violating the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act at U.S. District Court in Miami, the DOJ said in a statement. He is set to be sentenced on December 20 and now faces a maximum of 10 years in prison and $580,000 in fines. According to the DOJ, Sapsizian admitted to paying the bribes to a director at Costa Rica's Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad, in order to secure mobile telephone contracts for his company. Alcatel was eventually awarded a $149 million mobile phone contract in August 2001, the department said. Sapsizian had been employed by Alcatel and its subsidiaries for more than 20 years.Â Alcatel merged with Lucent TechnologiesÂ in late 2006 and the joint company is now known as Alcatel-Lucent. The Federal Bureau of Investigation continues to investigate the matter, the DOJ said. Alcatel-Lucent could not be reached immediately for comment.
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A U.S. federal jury found that Microsoft Corp. infringed audio patents held by Alcatel-Lucent and should pay $1.52 billion in damages, the No. 1 software maker said on Thursday.