Microsoft Ordered to Pay Alcatel-Lucent $70 Million after Retrial on Damages
July 30, 2011- Microsoft has been ordered to pay Alcatel-Lucent $70 million after a retrial on damages in the 2007 Lucent v. Gateway case. In 2008, a jury determined that Microsoft Outlook infringed claims 19 and 21 of a form-entry patent originally assigned to AT&T, and awarded Alcatel-Lucent $512 million in damages and interest. Following an appeal in which the award was overturned for lack of evidentiary support a new trial on damages was ordered. Alcatel-Lucent sought $75 million and Microsoft sought to have the award lowered to $5 million. According to a Bloomberg account of the retrial, Microsoft had argued that the patent was for a “date picker” function not used for email, the most widely used aspect of Outlook. A Microsoft spokesperson is quoted in the Bloomberg account saying, “We continue to maintain that current law requires a genuine apportionment of damages when the infringement is directed to a small feature of a feature-rich product.”