Appeals court ponders Microsoft patent case
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WASHINGTON--A federal appeals court on Thursday wrestled with whether to overturn or uphold a lower court&#39;s $565 million judgment against Microsoft in the biggest patent dispute in Web history.
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TORONTO/WASHINGTON  - A U.S. appeals court upheld  a patent infringement finding against BlackBerry e-mail device  maker Research In Motion Ltd. RIM.TO on Tuesday, but struck  down part of the ruling and sent it back to a lower court for  further proceedings.
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Microsoft Corp. presented oral arguments Wednesday before the U.S. Supreme Court in a 6-year-old patent lawsuit filed by AT&amp;T Inc. whose outcome could require U.S. software companies to pay fines for patent-infringing software assembled in other countries.
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TORONTO/WASHINGTON  - A U.S. appeals court upheld  a patent infringement finding against BlackBerry e-mail device  maker Research In Motion Ltd. RIM.TO on Tuesday, but said  part of an earlier court ruling was flawed and sent the case  back to a lower court.
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Linux maker hints it may convince Microsoft to honor its patents, as with other Linux vendors.
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(InfoWorld) - The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments Tuesday in a case that could make it harder to obtain patents, with technology giants Microsoft Corp. and Cisco Systems Inc. supporting a change. The case, involving a patent on gas pedals for vehicles, has the Supreme Court examining how lower courts arrive at a decision that an invention was obvious, and therefore not patentable. In the case, Teleflex Inc. and Technology Holding Co., holders of the electronic gas pedal patent, sued KSR International Co. for patent infringement, but the defendant argued the courts should invalidate the gas pedal invention for obviousness. After oral arguments Tuesday, some patent lawyers said they expected the Supreme Court to overturn a 4-decade-old approach to deciding obviousness often called the teaching-suggestion-motivation test. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has used this test, saying that there must be some proven teaching, suggestion or motivation to lead a person of ordinary skill to combine "prior art" products into a new invention for that invention to be declared obvious. Other patent lawyers said they expect little movement from the Supreme Court, although any change would have a huge impact on patent holders. If the Supreme Court throws out the motivation test, all current patents could be suspect, said Paul Andre, an intellectual property lawyer with Perkins Coie LLP, in an interview. A change in the motivation test could mean fewer patent infringement cases brought by patent holders, because they would fear that courts would rule their patents invalid, he said. "The alleged infringer would have an easier time challenging a patent," he added. But most patent lawyers seem to believe the Supreme Court won't change the law, with the court last acting on the obvious standard in a 1966 ruling, he said. "If the Supreme Court wanted to do it, they'd have changed it by now," he said. But justices asked several questions about the obviousness standard, with Chief Justice John Roberts suggesting courts needed more flexibility to determine obviousness. The court will likely require the Federal Circuit to come up with a new standard, said Sharon Barner, an intellectual property lawyer with Foley and Lardner LLP, in an interview apart from the court hearing. Cisco and Microsoft, joined by three other companies, filed a brief in the case saying the motivation standard makes it too hard to prove obviousness, leading to bad patents. Microsoft and Cisco have been sued for "allegedly infringing dozens of questionable patents," wrote their attorney Peter Sullivan, of Hughes, Hubbard and Reed LLP. The motivation test "establishes too lenient a standard for patentability, and it has had a stifling effect on true innovation because it encumbers ideas well beyond the limits imposed by Congress for patentable inventions," Sullivan wrote in his brief to the Supreme Court. But a group of patent lawyers filed a brief opposing a change in the law, saying a change in the obviousness standard could make it difficult to get a patent on any invention that combines old products. The current standard is established and well-thought, wrote lawyers for the American Intellectual Property Law Association. Without the motivation test, there's no standard to determine obviousness, said Ronald Riley, president of the Professional Inventors Alliance, in an interview. "Things are often obvious in hindsight when they weren't that obvious," he said. "Big un-innovative ... are trying to make the invention game a king's sport because they hate having to compensate inventors."
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The Supreme Court is ready to hear from lawyers from Microsoft and AT&amp;T as it considers a long-running patent dispute between the industry giants.
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A European judge must sort through competing ideas on the balance between intellectual property and fairness to decide whether antitrust penalties against Microsoft (Quote, Chart) should be suspended.
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A United States appeals court upheld a finding of patent infringement against Research In Motion Ltd. yesterday, but struck down part of the ruling and sent it back to a lower court for further proceedings.
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Patent infringement found; split decision sends part of case back to lower court.
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Research in Motion lost part of the case on appeal, but it&#39;s not over until it&#39;s over. Specifically, the patent infringement finding against the maker of the email device was upheld by the appeals court.
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Grotius writes &quot;As reported in CNET, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (the court that hears patent appeals) heard oral argument in an appeal from a $565 million award against Microsoft for infringing patent rights held by the
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An appeals court should throw out a half-billion-dollar patent infringement judgment against Microsoft because a lower court failed to recognize that the Web browsing patent was based on a technology that was not invented by the company awarded the money
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An appeals court should throw out a $500m (Â£260m) patent infringement judgement against Microsoft because a lower court failed to recognise that the patent was not invented by the company awarded the money, a Microsoft lawyer claimed yesterday.
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A federal appeals court handed  Google Inc a setback in a patent fight on Wednesday, tossing  out part of a summary judgment in the Web search engine's favor  in a lawsuit filed by HyperphRase Technologies, LLC.
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SEATTLE _ Microsoft left its first-ever appearance before the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday encouraged about its chance of winning a case that could have broader implications for patent protection of software sold overseas.
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A U.S. appeals court ruled Tuesday that Research In Motion, maker of the BlackBerry e-mail device, infringed on another company's patent  --  but sent the case back to a lower court for some of the claims to be reconsidered.