September 24th, 2009
Court likely to cut damages in MSFT patent infringement case
Federal Circuit judges offered strong hints they will uphold Microsoft’s liability for Word 2003 and 2007’s violation of a patent held by Toronto-based i4i but sharply reduce the damages.
Reuters reports that Judge Kimberly Moore looked askance at the jury’s calculation that XML users would have paid substantially more than the $90 charged for product in question. (I’m confused from this coversage whether the product was Word or Windows; clearly, it’s Word but the article refers to Windows - what am I missing?)
“Not everyone who is willing to pay $90 or $200 for a product is willing to pay $500,” she said.
Microsoft tried to argue that while there had been discussions between Redmond and Toronto, no one at Microsoft had ever read i4i’s patents.
Judge Alvin Schall was skeptical. “I find it hard to believe that Microsoft didn’t read the patent,” he said.
