Microsoft wins jury trial in patent dispute with Motorola

IDG News Service - A jury in Seattle, Washington, has ruled in favor of Microsoft in a patent dispute with Motorola Mobility over standards patents, according to court records.

The jury was to decide Wednesday whether Motorola, now a part of Google, breached its agreements to provide certain technology to Microsoft on fair and reasonable terms.

The dispute between Microsoft and Motorola in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington at Seattle can be traced to 2010 when Motorola asked Microsoft to pay royalties for Motorola technology contributed to the H.264 video compression standard and 802.11 wireless networking standard. Microsoft was willing to pay a royalty, but found the 2.25 percent of the product price that Motorola had sought was too high. Motorola's terms were designed to ensure that Microsoft would not accept and Motorola could then sue for an injunction on its products, Microsoft argued in court.

Patents that go into defining standards, also known as standard-essential patents, usually carry with them the understanding that they will be licensed under fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms.

The misuse of standard patents to disrupt competition has been under scrutiny including by the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission. The FTC, for example, has warned against the use of standard-essential patents to seek bans on sales of products.

"This is a landmark win for all who want products that are affordable and work well together," David Howard, Microsoft's corporate vice president and deputy general counsel said in a statement. "The jury's verdict is the latest in a growing list of decisions by regulators and courts telling Google to stop abusing patents."

The details of the jury verdict were not available immediately on online court records. Microsoft won about US$15 million in damages, the Seattle Times newspaper reported in a blog post.

"We're disappointed in this outcome, but look forward to an appeal of the new legal issues raised in this case," a spokesman for Motorola said in an email. "In the meantime, we'll focus on building great products that people love."

U.S. District Court Judge James L. Robart ruled in April that Microsoft had to pay US$1.8 million in fair and reasonable royalties, far less than the $4 billion Microsoft said it would have paid at Motorola's demanded rate. Judge Robart earlier denied Motorola an injunction on Microsoft's products that allegedly infringe its H.264 and 802.11 standards-essential patents, as the Google unit could not show irreparable harm or that monetary damages would be inadequate.

John Ribeiro covers outsourcing and general technology breaking news from India for The IDG News Service. Follow John on Twitter at @Johnribeiro. John's e-mail address is john_ribeiro@idg.com

Reprinted with permission from IDG.net. Story copyright 2012 International Data Group. All rights reserved.

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Microsoft wins jury trial in patent dispute with Motorola

IDG News Service - A jury in Seattle, Washington, has ruled in favor of Microsoft in a patent dispute with Motorola Mobility over standards patents, according to court records.

The jury was to decide Wednesday whether Motorola, now a part of Google, breached its agreements to provide certain technology to Microsoft on fair and reasonable terms.

The dispute between Microsoft and Motorola in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington at Seattle can be traced to 2010 when Motorola asked Microsoft to pay royalties for Motorola technology contributed to the H.264 video compression standard and 802.11 wireless networking standard. Microsoft was willing to pay a royalty, but found the 2.25 percent of the product price that Motorola had sought was too high. Motorola's terms were designed to ensure that Microsoft would not accept and Motorola could then sue for an injunction on its products, Microsoft argued in court.

Patents that go into defining standards, also known as standard-essential patents, usually carry with them the understanding that they will be licensed under fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms.

The misuse of standard patents to disrupt competition has been under scrutiny including by the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission. The FTC, for example, has warned against the use of standard-essential patents to seek bans on sales of products.

"This is a landmark win for all who want products that are affordable and work well together," David Howard, Microsoft's corporate vice president and deputy general counsel said in a statement. "The jury's verdict is the latest in a growing list of decisions by regulators and courts telling Google to stop abusing patents."

The details of the jury verdict were not available immediately on online court records. Microsoft won about US$15 million in damages, the Seattle Times newspaper reported in a blog post.

"We're disappointed in this outcome, but look forward to an appeal of the new legal issues raised in this case," a spokesman for Motorola said in an email. "In the meantime, we'll focus on building great products that people love."

U.S. District Court Judge James L. Robart ruled in April that Microsoft had to pay US$1.8 million in fair and reasonable royalties, far less than the $4 billion Microsoft said it would have paid at Motorola's demanded rate. Judge Robart earlier denied Motorola an injunction on Microsoft's products that allegedly infringe its H.264 and 802.11 standards-essential patents, as the Google unit could not show irreparable harm or that monetary damages would be inadequate.

John Ribeiro covers outsourcing and general technology breaking news from India for The IDG News Service. Follow John on Twitter at @Johnribeiro. John's e-mail address is john_ribeiro@idg.com

Reprinted with permission from IDG.net. Story copyright 2012 International Data Group. All rights reserved.

View the original article here

Microsoft wins jury trial in patent dispute with Motorola

A jury in Seattle, Washington, has ruled in favor of Microsoft in a patent dispute with Motorola Mobility over standards patents, according to court records.

The jury was to decide Wednesday whether Motorola, now a part of Google, breached its agreements to provide certain technology to Microsoft on fair and reasonable terms.

The dispute between Microsoft and Motorola in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington at Seattle can be traced to 2010 when Motorola asked Microsoft to pay royalties for Motorola technology contributed to the H.264 video compression standard and 802.11 wireless networking standard. Microsoft was willing to pay a royalty, but found the 2.25 percent of the product price that Motorola had sought was too high. Motorola’s terms were designed to ensure that Microsoft would not accept and Motorola could then sue for an injunction on its products, Microsoft argued in court.

Patents that go into defining standards, also known as standard-essential patents, usually carry with them the understanding that they will be licensed under fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms.

The misuse of standard patents to disrupt competition has been under scrutiny including by the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission. The FTC, for example, has warned against the use of standard-essential patents to seek bans on sales of products.

“This is a landmark win for all who want products that are affordable and work well together,” David Howard, Microsoft’s corporate vice president and deputy general counsel said in a statement. “The jury’s verdict is the latest in a growing list of decisions by regulators and courts telling Google to stop abusing patents.”

The details of the jury verdict were not available immediately on online court records. Microsoft won about $15 million in damages, the Seattle Times newspaper reported in a blog post.

“We’re disappointed in this outcome, but look forward to an appeal of the new legal issues raised in this case,” a spokesman for Motorola said in an email. “In the meantime, we’ll focus on building great products that people love.”

U.S. District Court Judge James L. Robart ruled in April that Microsoft had to pay $1.8 million in fair and reasonable royalties, far less than the $4 billion Microsoft said it would have paid at Motorola’s demanded rate. Judge Robart earlier denied Motorola an injunction on Microsoft’s products that allegedly infringe its H.264 and 802.11 standards-essential patents, as the Google unit could not show irreparable harm or that monetary damages would be inadequate.

John Ribeiro covers outsourcing and general technology breaking news from India for The IDG News Service.
More by John Ribeiro, IDG News Service

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Google says UK privacy laws don't apply to Safari cookies dispute

Google has told British consumers in a privacy claim that it does not have to answer to English courts and U.K. privacy laws don’t apply to it, according to the law firm for the plaintiffs.

Legal documents filed by the Internet company show that Google will contest the right of Safari users in the U.K. to bring a case in the country where they live and use Google’s service, the law firm Olswang said in a statement on Sunday.

The Internet company refused to accept service of the lawsuit in the U.K., instead forcing the plaintiffs to serve the company in California, the law firm added.

The lawsuit is still in early days, and Google is expected to argue that its customer-facing services in the U.K. are provided out of the U.S.

A group of Internet users in the U.K. said in January they were seeking damages, disclosure and an apology from Google for its alleged undermining of the security settings on Apple’s Safari browser to track online usage covertly.

Olswang initiated the legal action on the behalf of three claimants backed by a campaign called “Safari Users Against Google’s Secret Tracking.”

It followed an announcement in August last year by the Federal Trade Commission in the U.S. that Google agreed to pay a $22.5 million civil penalty to settle charges that it misrepresented to users of Safari that it would not place tracking cookies or serve targeted ads to those users, violating an earlier privacy settlement between the company and the FTC.

The FTC alleged that Google placed advertising tracking cookies on consumers’ computers, in many cases by circumventing Safari’s default cookie-blocking setting. Google denied any wrongdoing.

The filing by Google is not public. Google did not comment.

“It seems to us absurd to suggest that consumers can’t bring a claim against a company which is operating in the U.K. and is even constructing a $1 billion headquarters in London,” Marc Bradshaw, a plaintiff in the lawsuit, said in the statement.

“I argued just over a year ago that Google should be forced to answer to the courts in the jurisdiction where a complaint is filed especially if they have an office there and that it is a mockery of our judicial system if they are permitted to evade judicial process by hiding behind a parent company in California,” said privacy advocate Alexander Hanff in a blog post on Sunday.

John Ribeiro covers outsourcing and general technology breaking news from India for The IDG News Service.
More by John Ribeiro, IDG News Service

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