Microsoft has won an appeals court ruling overturning a $358 million damages award to Alcatel-Lucent for patent infringement.

Chief Judge Paul Michel and circuit judges Pauline Newman and Alan Lourie made the ruling in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit today. The judges affirmed that Microsoft had infringed on the patent but said the damage amount lacked evidentiary support. The case will be remanded to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California to decide what damages should be.

"We are pleased that the court vacated the damages award, and we look forward to taking the next step in the judicial process," said Kevin Kutz, Microsoft spokesperson."

Alcatel-Lucent filed multiple lawsuits in November 2006. The company claimed that Microsoft Outlook, Money and Mobile software infringed on a patent Alcatel held. Alcatel pointed to Outlook's calendaring function, which displays the month's calendar as a grid, then translates the date the user chooses into the appointment date form.

Microsoft argued that the feature was only worth $6.5 million. In the summer of 2008, a jury agreed with Alcatel, which estimated the feature was worth $358 million.

Judge Michel wrote in his ruling, "Again, it was Lucent’s burden to prove that the licenses relied on were sufficiently comparable to sustain a lump-sum damages award of $358 million. This is not an instance in which the jury chose a damages award somewhere between maximum and minimum lump-sum amounts advocated by the opposing parties. ... For the reasons stated, Factor 2 weighs strongly against the jury’s award."