Alcatel-Lucent again failed to enforce their US 5,341,457, one of the patents they claim is related to MP3, against Microsoft. Earlier a lower court awarded them a billion dollar claim. Now the Courts of Appeal of the Federal Curcuit sided against the French company. Thus Microsoft does not have to pay more than one billion.
If Alcatel-Lucent sent a cease and desist letter to an small-medium enterprise it would be suicidal for the company to enter litigation regardless the merits of the patent.
Find the case documented on Wikipedia: Alcatel vs. Microsoft
- Bloomberg: Microsoft doesn't have to pay $1.5b patent claim
- AP: Judge: Microsoft doesn't owe Alcatel-Lucent $1.5B
- AFP: Court rules for Microsoft in patent case
While it was ruled that they don't infringe each others patents the patent is not pulled yet. The judgement also does not affect enforcement in other jurisdictions than the United States nor does it affect the validity of the 457 patent in the States. The audio codec MP3 is mined with several patents but some of them are expired. The 457 is not part of the Frauenhofer licensing package. Alcatel-Lucent can exercise an option to appeal.
