Alcatel-Lucent Patent Dispute Award

Long-running patent infringement litigation between Alcatel-Lucent and Microsoft reached a new milestone in July 2011 when a federal jury awarded Alcatel-Lucent US$70 million in damages for Microsoft’s infringement of an Alcatel-Lucent’s patent. The dispute may continue as David Howard, Microsoft’s deputy general counsel, indicated that Microsoft will review the verdict and consider next steps, which would likely be either paying the award or making a further appeal.

A previous jury had found that Microsoft had infringed on the patent and had subsequently awarded US$358 million in damages to Alcatel-Lucent, but an appeals court, while upholding the infringement, chose to overturn the jury award stating it was based on insufficient evidence. The latest award was made by a new jury considering new evidence about the value of the infringing technology.

Howard also indicated “that the current law requires a genuine apportionment of damages when the infringement is directed to a small feature of a feature-rich product,” implying that Microsoft felt that the infringement was small, and the award for infringement too large.