Microsoft Corp Case Study

PLAINTIFF: AT&T CORP.

V/S

DEFENDANTS: MICROSOFT CORP.

This report contains the:

1. Overview

2. Background

3. Conclusions by law

4. Implications

5. Order for judgment

I. OVERVIEW

Microsoft v. AT&T, 550 U.S. 437 (2007), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Supreme Court reversed a previous decision by the Federal Circuit and ruled in favour of Microsoft, holding that Microsoft was not liable for infringement on AT&T's patent under 35 U.S.C. In this case, Microsoft exported abroad the “master version” of its Windows software disk, which incorporated a speech processing function claimed by one of AT&T’s patents, with the intent that such software be copied abroad for installation onto foreign-manufactured computers. According

Microsoft Corporation and held that software code alone qualifies as an invention eligible for patenting. Since statutory language does not limit § 271(f) to patented ‘machines’ or ‘physical structures,’ software can very well be a ‘component’ of patented invention under § 271(f)”.The Federal Circuit also explained that the act of “copying” is subsumed in the act of “supplying”. Therefore the exportation of the master disk, with the specific intent to be replicated abroad, was an act considered as “supplied or caused to be supplied from the United States within the meaning of § 271(f).However, Federal Circuit Judge Randall R. Rader objected to the view that “supplies” includes the act of foreign “copying”. Judge Rader expressed concerns that such an interpretation was an impermissible “extraterritorial expansion” of U.S. patent law because it reached copying activity overseas. In his view, AT&T’s remedy lied not in U.S. law, but rather the law of the foreign country in which the infringement due to copying

v. Microsoft Corp., 447 F.Supp.2d 177(2006) was a patent lawsuit originally filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island. Both Uniloc and Microsoft utilized product registration software intended to reduce unauthorized copying of software. At the district court level, the court granted summary judgment of non-infringement by Microsoft of Uniloc’s patent. The court’s verdict was appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which reversed and remanded the decision. In their remanded district court case, the jury returned a verdict of infringement, finding Microsoft’s infringement to be wilful, and rewarding Uniloc $388 million in damages. However the district court granted a new trial on infringement and wilfulness as well as other motions following post-trial motions. In response, Uniloc appealed once again. The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed the new trial on infringement, but stated that Uniloc lacked evidence to prove wilfulness and granted a new trial on damage costs. In this decision, the Federal Circuit shifted model and rejected the previously widely used “25 percent rule of thumb” [1] in calculating patent damage awards. In March 2012, Uniloc and Microsoft reached a “final and mutually agreeable resolution”, the terms of which were not