Patent row could hit MP3 industry

w1z4rd

Karmic Sangoma
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News that Microsoft has been fined for violating MP3 patents belonging to Alcatel-Lucent could have widespread fallout for the industry.

Experts now suggest the US ruling could lead to hundreds of firms - including Apple and RealNetworks - being pursued for payments relating to the format.

"Any of the companies that have licensed and implemented that technology have to have great concern about this verdict," said Microsoft vice president Thomas W Burt.

And it seems the Federal District Court in San Diego agrees - it ordered Microsoft to pay Alcatel $1.52bn, an award both companies say is the largest patent award in history.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6389501.stm

Patents :mad: :(
 
Ja and so many people still think America is "cool"

This is a fine example of what them yanks call patent trolling

Suggested Reading:

http://www.lodmell.com/lawsuitlottery.html

With more than a million lawyers and 70,000 lawsuits a day, the U.S. civil justice system has been corrupted into a gigantic get-rich-quick lottery - a new national pastime played 20 million times a year by a growing army of self-styled "victims" and their increasingly powerful and predatory attorneys. No one is excluded from The Lawsuit Lottery.

In today's greed-driven, none-for-all-and-all-for-one society, Americans are suing each other for every conceivable complaint - regardless of merit or the common good -- in a dysfunctional tort system that is no longer civil or just.
 
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