Alcatel-Lucent victory in Microsoft patent lawsuit

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A US jury has awarded networking and telecoms company Alcatel Lucent a $367.4 million (£184.2 million) payout after agreeing that Microsoft had violated two patents related to the user interface in its software.

Alcatel-Lucent was seeking $1.5 billion (£750 million) in damages related to four patents named in the case, which has been running for almost a year.

The fourth patent in the lawsuit was asserted only against Dell, which was found not to have infringed, according to Microsoft.

"We will move immediately to have the two verdicts against Microsoft overturned. We feel confident the verdicts will be overturned, just as the court overturned a verdict last year by a San Diego jury," said Tom Burt, Microsoft corporate vice president and deputy general counsel in a statement.

Burt was referring to Microsoft's courtroom victory when US District Judge Rudi Brewster threw out a jury's $1.5 billion damage ruling against Microsoft over audio technology patents claimed by Alcatel-Lucent. The French company has appealed the judge's decision.

Alcatel-Lucent spokeswoman Mary Ward said it was pleased by the jury's ruling.

The software maker joined Dell and Gateway to fight the suit over technology used in Microsoft software licensed by those computer manufacturers. Microsoft and Alcatel-Lucent are locked in several patent disputes, including a suit over video-decoding technology in Microsoft's Xbox game console.

Microsoft said the two patents it was found to have infringed upon related to technology that allows users to enter dates into calendars and another used in tablet computers to recognise patterns in handwriting.

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