<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR>Microsoft sued for $842m in anti-piracy patent case
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<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"--><!-- more than 4 paragraphs -->PROVIDENCE (RHODE ISLAND): - Microsoft Corp, the world's largest software maker, stole a US company's patented invention used to deter piracy and should pay more than US$558 million (S$842 million) in royalties, a lawyer told a United States federal court jury.
Uniloc USA, based in Irvine, California, and its Singapore-registered business Uniloc Singapore, claim Microsoft used the security technology to earn billions of dollars.
Microsoft saw Uniloc's patent and used it without permission, the lawyer for Uniloc, Mr Paul Hayes, said on Tuesday during closing arguments.
He added that Microsoft had 'nothing unique going in' to create its anti-piracy software.
Microsoft contends that it uses a different method to prevent the use of unauthorised copies of its software. It also challenged whether Uniloc's patent covers a new invention.
'There is no infringement in this case,' Mr Frank Scherkenbach, an attorney representing Microsoft, said on Tuesday in his closing argument. 'The technology is fundamentally different.'
Microsoft claims Uniloc's patent is obvious and should be deemed invalid. In addition, Mr Scherkenbach said the request for more than half a billion dollars in damages was 'extreme and out of whack'.
Between US$3 million and US$7 million would be 'generous', if the jury were to find infringement, he said during the trial which began on March 23.
The patent - first issued to Australian Ric Richardson, based on work he did in the early 1990s - covers a software registration system. Mr Richardson was working to eliminate 'casual copying', in which a person installs a single program on more computers than permitted.
Microsoft had won the case in 2006, when a US district judge ruled that the software maker used a different type of encryption technology from that covered by Uniloc's patent. An appeals court overturned that ruling. BLOOMBERG
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<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"--><!-- more than 4 paragraphs -->PROVIDENCE (RHODE ISLAND): - Microsoft Corp, the world's largest software maker, stole a US company's patented invention used to deter piracy and should pay more than US$558 million (S$842 million) in royalties, a lawyer told a United States federal court jury.
Uniloc USA, based in Irvine, California, and its Singapore-registered business Uniloc Singapore, claim Microsoft used the security technology to earn billions of dollars.
Microsoft saw Uniloc's patent and used it without permission, the lawyer for Uniloc, Mr Paul Hayes, said on Tuesday during closing arguments.
He added that Microsoft had 'nothing unique going in' to create its anti-piracy software.
Microsoft contends that it uses a different method to prevent the use of unauthorised copies of its software. It also challenged whether Uniloc's patent covers a new invention.
'There is no infringement in this case,' Mr Frank Scherkenbach, an attorney representing Microsoft, said on Tuesday in his closing argument. 'The technology is fundamentally different.'
Microsoft claims Uniloc's patent is obvious and should be deemed invalid. In addition, Mr Scherkenbach said the request for more than half a billion dollars in damages was 'extreme and out of whack'.
Between US$3 million and US$7 million would be 'generous', if the jury were to find infringement, he said during the trial which began on March 23.
The patent - first issued to Australian Ric Richardson, based on work he did in the early 1990s - covers a software registration system. Mr Richardson was working to eliminate 'casual copying', in which a person installs a single program on more computers than permitted.
Microsoft had won the case in 2006, when a US district judge ruled that the software maker used a different type of encryption technology from that covered by Uniloc's patent. An appeals court overturned that ruling. BLOOMBERG
