bbgruff wrote:
>
> Interesting....
>
> The "Jury award" was for $200M
> - but then the judge tagged on another $40M
>
> "The judge who banned Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) from selling its Word
> document program in the U.S. due to a patent violation tacked an
> additional $40 million onto a jury's $200 million verdict because the
> software maker's lawyers engaged in trial misconduct, court records
> reveal"
>
> "In a written ruling, Judge Leonard Davis, of U.S. District Court for
> Eastern Texas, chastised Microsoft's attorneys for repeatedly
> misrepresenting the law in presentations to jurors"
>
> - then he rubbed the salt in by adding another $50M in costs :-(
>
> Personally, I don't hold with much/all of this S/W patents stuff, but I
> find it difficult to sympathise with MS, in that they themselves have
> registered very many such patents, and even threatened Linux without
> specifying *which* patents they claim that it infringes!
>
> I assume now that they will appeal, and if that fails, simply cough up to
> license the patent rather than change or stop selling MS Word.
>
> One aspect that I hadn't appreciated - it appears that this "conform or
> stop selling" order applies *throughout* the U.S.?
> What happens in the rest of the world?
Didn't you hear? Micoshaft is above the law and have a plan.
Step1 - take head handed to them on plate
Step2 - Carry on selling and break law.
???
Profit!!!
> Also (question for you legal types) I thought that the charge was that MS
> *wilfully* infringed the patent.
> What does this mean?
> Does it (for example) mean that they were *told* that they were
> infringing, and refused to stop, or..... what?
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