More Patent Disputes
Lucent Technologies is suing Microsoft over Xbox 360 patent infringement. Lucent declares that the way in which the Xbox 360 decodes videos actually infringes on a patent they’ve held for decades.
According to Lucent, the MPEG2 decoder used by the Xbox 360 for some of its video functionality infringes on US patent number 5,227,878, which dates from mid-1993 and describes a method for “adaptive coding and decoding of frames and fields of video.”
This patent was tried over a year ago and was found to be in favor of Microsoft but there is more to the story. There was a typo in the patent papers, which allowed Microsoft to win the battle; however, now, the typo has been corrected and lucent is back trying to open the case up to a jury.
Lucent states that they want the Xbox 360 pulled from the market; however, I’m sure they’d settle for a rather large sum of cash. Honestly I’m in no position to judge, but I’m sure Lucent will probably get its way.
Comments Off