Microsoft FAT patent fails in Germany

While the U.S. courts recently reaffirmed Microsoft's FAT (File Allocation Table) patents, the German Patent Federal Court has just dismissed the patent for use in Germany.

According to a report in the German news publication Heise Online, the court has denied the protection that the European Patent Office granted to Microsoft under EP 0618540 for a "common namespace for long and short filenames." This was based on Microsoft's US Patent No. 5,758,352. The German Patent Court stated that the patent claims Microsoft made are "not based on inventive activity."


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Microsoft Stakes DRM Patent Claims

A smart guy wrote a while back that DRM has “negative value” with no way to motivate users to be interested in adopting it, let alone pay for it. So what should be said of the attempt to patent DRM methods? We noted that Microsoft was recently issued a patent on a method of managing DRM across devices and were curious about how much effort they have put into DRM.

In early 2001, Apple made a dynamic move signing major labels to deliver legitimate music downloads, albeit with a good amount of restrictions (FairPlay). Fair enough, a number of folks at the time thought that DRM was a good way to get the digital party legally started. While iPods sold and Microsoft worked on playsforsure and planned Zune, we pulled together more of the picture on DRM which adds insight to Steve’s Thoughts on Music.


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Microsoft's Copyright Assault on Google

by Catherine Holahan

Hoping to convince publishers to back its own online book search service, the software titan comes out swinging against the search giant.

Microsoft threw a one-two public relations punch against Google, starting Mar. 5. The sparring got under way when Microsoft attorney Thomas Rubin publicly criticized Google's position on copyright—first in a newspaper editorial and then again the following day at a publishing industry conference.


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Microsoft wins wordy patent battle

A US federal judge has dismissed Alcatel-Lucent's patent claim against Microsoft over technology that converts speech into text, the two companies said.

The ruling made late last week comes after a jury found that the world's largest software maker infringed on audio patents held by Alcatel-Lucent and ordered the company to pay $US1.52 billion ($1.94 billion) in damages.

US District Judge Rudi Brewster in San Diego dismissed all of Alcatel-Lucent's claims in a summary judgment, meaning that the jury trial set to begin on March 19 will not take place. Alcatel-Lucent said it plans to appeal the ruling.


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Vista Doesn't Add DRM To Unprotected Content

Out there, in the blogging world, a lot of facts can get mixed up with rumours and lies. George Ou has attempted to put an end to the whole Vista and DRM confusion. I said he "has attempted" simply because there will always be Microsoft haters who will continue to spew false information regardless of how hard the facts slap them in the face: “A lot of people have been screaming that Vista will deprive you of your rights with the inclusion of DRM technology. Bruce Schneier even referred to this DRM issue as a "security" issue for Vista even though he's merely referring to existence of DRM capability. We're hearing widespread rumors that DRM slows down game play. I even hear people blaming DRM for the lack of driver support in Vista.”


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Microsoft told to pay Alcatel $1.5bn in MP3 patent spat

Microsoft is reviewing its legal options after a US court ordered it to pay Alcatel $1.5bn for infringing the French telecoms' company's MP3 technology in Windows.

Alcatel, which announced a partnership with Microsoft on IPTV in February 2005, inherited the San Diego court action through its $11.5bn merger with Lucent.

The original action pitted Lucent against Gateway and Dell over 15 patent claims, but saw Microsoft step in as it might be obliged to re-imburse the PC makers for damages they'd have to pay. The action has spawned related suits, with Alcatel last November prosecuting Microsoft in the Eastern District of Texas over video and voice technology used to decode video signals in Microsoft's Xbox 360.


Read more on TheRegister.co.uk

Microsoft files patent suit against Alcatel-Lucent

Microsoft filed suit against Alcatel-Lucent over technology that allows a user to cobble together a number of features on both data and telephony networks to create a unified communications system.

The patent infringement suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Delaware, focuses on four different patents that were awarded to Microsoft between 2001 and 2004. Microsoft is seeking damages and an injunction against the Paris-based Alcatel-Lucent.


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Ballmer: Piracy to Blame For Slow Vista Sales

Microsoft plans to step up antipiracy measures to bolster Vista sales

Microsoft didn't seem to have any problems with forecasted sales projections for Windows Vista when analysts were abuzz at the end of 2006. In late November, IDC projected that over 90 million copies of Windows Vista would ship in 2007 -- far outpacing the 67 million copies of Windows XP shipped during its first year on the market.

Now after slow initial sales of Windows Vista, Microsoft is saying that the analysts were "overly aggressive" with their sales projections. According to PC Advisor, Vista sales are off 60% compared to the 2001 launch of Windows XP. Revenue is also down by 23% so far with Vista's launch.


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Supreme Court battle looms between AT&T and Microsoft over patent infringement

It rests on just two words in an obscure federal law, but billions of dollars may hang in the balance.

Today, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in Microsoft vs. AT&T, a complex transnational patent infringement case that the software industry says, if upheld, could threaten its business and drive thousands of jobs overseas.

At issue is whether copies of the Microsoft Windows operating system sold abroad infringe on a U.S. patent owned by AT&T, but the decision will affect every American software company doing business outside the United States.


Read more on MercuryNews.com