Alcatel Pwned: Jury Rules 360 Doesn’t Violate Software Patents

Xbox 360 owners can rest a little easier now that their consoles aren’t illegal. A federal jury has thrown out the third of five lawsuits in an ongoing legal battle between Microsoft and Alcatel-Lucent SA, and found that Microsoft did not violate Alcatel-Lucent’s patent on video coding. This includes patents for MPEG-2 technology, which is the key to digital TV broadcasts and DVD recording.
Alcatel had been seeking up to $419 million for its claims and Microsoft was counter-suing that Alcatel violated its own patents and sought $11.5 million. The federal jury threw out Alcatel’s lawsuit, and also ruled against Microsoft’s counter claims. So nobody got anything, and everybody got nothing.
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