A federal jury in San Diego has ordered Microsoft to pay $1.5 billion to Alcatel-Lucent in a patent dispute over MP3 audio technology used in Windows. Microsoft claims that it properly licensed MP3 technology from Fraunhofer, paying that company $16 million. Fraunhofer, which helped develop the MP3 compression technology along with Lucent's Bell Labs, has licensed its intellectual property to companies that want to use the audio format in their products. Fraunhofer has since handed the MP3-licensing duties over to Thomson. Alcatel-Lucent's Ambrus declined to say whether the company might pursue other companies that use MP3 technology in their products. The ruling could spur Alcatel-Lucent to seek royalties from other companies, said Andrew Leibnitz, an intellectual property lawyer for Farella Braun and Martel in San Francisco. This could spur the emergence of newer music format or make new existing format more popular than mp3. Formats such as wma and acc might just overtake mp3 as the leader in music format.
Comment Preview