Microsoft ordered to pay $70m to Alcatel-Lucent over patent

A U.S. federal jury on Friday ordered Microsoft Corp. to pay $70 million to French telecom company Alcatel-Lucent in a patent infringement case. The U.S. software giant had been ordered to pay $358 million to Alcatel-Lucent by a different court but the damages award was thrown out on appeal. The U.S. appeals court upheld the lower court's ruling that Microsoft had infringed a patent involved with selecting the date in Outlook and other programs but asked for a recalculation of the damages in the case. The new jury, sitting in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California, ruled Friday that Microsoft should pay $70 million for infringing a patent held by Lucent Technologies. Microsoft was found to have infringed the Lucent patent between January 2003 and December 2006 in versions of Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Money and Windows Mobile.
The firm, then known only as Lucent, filed a 15-patent suit in 2003 against computer makers Dell Inc. and Gateway for allegedly selling machines with Microsoft software that used Lucent technology without permission. Microsoft weighed into the case to protect its partnerships with computer makers and to stop the litigation from being broadened to other companies using Microsoft software. Telekom Austria AG said Monday it reserves the right to be reimbursed for payments made in 2004 as part of a management stock option program, should reports of stock price manipulation in connection with the program be substantiated.
Austrian magazine Profil reported earlier Monday that part of Telekom Austria's management may have paid a brokerage firm to purchase stocks in 2004 with the intent of raising the stock price, thereby triggering incentive payments totaling approximately EUR9 million to about 100 managers. In a statement issued Monday, Telekom Austria said that at the time of payment, it reserved the right to be reimbursed because there was an ongoing investigation into the stock price movements by the Federal Market Authority."Should it come to light that these payments were not justified, then every euro and every cent that was paid as a part of this program will be reclaimed by Telekom Austria," said Chief Executive Hannes Ametsreiter in a statement. The stock option program had originally been implemented in 2000 and invited 150 of

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