Microsoft Guilty Of Patent Infringement, Court Finds

by Ulrika Lomas, for LawAndTax-News.com, Brussels

24 April 2006

A Texas jury last week ordered Microsoft and Autodesk to pay $133 million to Michigan-based entrepreneur David Colvin, founder of z4 Technologies.

Mr Colvin's company is concerned with digital rights management, and he had alleged that the two firms infringed on patents that he holds, covering the assignation of passwords to copies of software programs in order to prevent piracy and unauthorised use.

Microsoft has been ordered to pay $115 million, and Autodesk $18 million. However, according to US media reports, Microsoft is awaiting a related court decision on whether z4 deliberately withheld information from the US Patent and Trademark Office regarding existing product activation practices employed by other firms.

Speaking to the Australian IT news service last week, Microsoft spokesman Jack Evans announced that:

"While we are disappointed with this verdict, we continue to contend that there was no infringement of any kind and that the facts in this case show that Microsoft developed its own product activation technologies well before z4 Technologies filed for its patent."

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