MICROSOFT PAYS OUT $60 MILLION FOR PATENT LICENCE

Post by Jeremy and Ilanah:

The Register reports that Microsoft has settled a patent infringement case by cutting a licensing deal and paying $60 million to ImagExpo GmbH, a Munich-based subsidiary of SPX Corporation. SPX, a large US industrial manufacturer, successfully sued last November on its complaint that Microsoft's now defunct NetMeeting software infringed its whiteboard patent. A jury in a Virginia district court decided in favour of SPX in November.

The IPKat notes that, despite allegations that US juries tend to favour US corporations over foreign ones in patent litigation, This was a case in which the jury gave a German company the decision over a home-grown one. This either shows that juries in patent trials are not so biased after all, or that they really don’t like Microsoft.

Read the result of one NetMeeting here
Technologically advanced whiteboard here
Visit the Patent Jury Forum here