Microsoft, Dell ordered to pay Alcatel in patent infringement suit

Microsoft must pay almost $368 million to Alcatel-Lucent, the world's largest supplier of telecommunications equipment, after a jury found two of Alcatel-Lucent's patents were infringed.

Alcatel-Lucent had asked for about $1.75 billion from Microsoft and Dell after claiming four of its patents were violated.

The federal court jury in San Diego on Friday also said Dell infringed one patent and owed Alcatel-Lucent $51,000.

The patents were owned by Lucent Technologies, which Paris-based Alcatel SA acquired in 2006.

Lucent sued in 2002 claiming infringement of patents for computer-video coding used in digital television, DVDs and video games; a data-entry method for computer forms; and the use of a stylus.

Lucent initially sued computer makers Dell and Gateway. Microsoft then sued Lucent on concern that it might have to reimburse Dell in the case because the dispute relates to features within the Microsoft Windows operating system installed on Dell PCs.

Microsoft, the world's biggest software maker, also filed counterclaims that both alleged the Lucent patents aren't valid and challenged other patents held by the company. Gateway, now owned by Taipei, Taiwan-based Acer, settled with Alcatel-Lucent in February.

The trial is the second stemming from a package of claims and counterclaims that U.S. District Judge Rudi Brewster in San Diego split into five separate cases.

In February 2007, a San Diego jury ruled in the first trial that Microsoft's Windows Media Player infringed Lucent patents related to the MP3 digital-audio standard and awarded Alcatel-Lucent a record $1.52 billion in damages.

Brewster threw out the verdict in August, finding that one of the two patents wasn't infringed and that Microsoft had a valid license for the second one. Alcatel-Lucent is appealing.

"We do not believe the jury's verdict against Microsoft on the two user-interface patents is supported by the facts or the law," Microsoft Deputy General Counsel Tom Burt said in a statement.

"We feel confident the verdicts will be overturned, just as the court overturned a verdict last year." The verdict is the fifth-biggest in U.S. history in a patent case, according to Bloomberg data.