Supreme Court favors Microsoft in AT&T case
The 7-to-1 ruling changes how the software industry looks
at patent rights The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on
Monday that Microsoft is not liable for using patented AT&T technology in
copies of Windows running on computers outside the U.S.
By Jeremy Kirk, IDG News Service
April 30, 2007
The 7-to-1 ruling relieves the software giant from paying what could have been enormous damages and changes how the software industry looks at patent rights.
Microsoft has previously admitted to violating an AT&T patent for converting speech to computer code, which it incorporated into tens of millions of copies of its Windows OS. It settled with AT&T in the U.S., but disputed that Windows software running on machines located overseas were covered by the patent.
At issue was part of a 1984 patent law, Section 271F, which prevents companies from shipping parts overseas to be assembled in a fashion that would infringe on a U.S. patent.
Microsoft argued in front of the court in February that the master copies of Windows it ships overseas to other manufacturers are blueprints that do not violate patent laws.
AT&T, which filed the original case in federal court in New York in 2001, countered that Microsoft used the code in combination with other components in order to reap royalties from every copy of Windows sold.
In delivering the court's opinion, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote that the "master disk" or "electronic transmission" Microsoft gives to foreign manufacturers does not violate the patent on its own since that specific copy is not used on foreign-made computers.
