RSSMicrosoft, Autodesk lose piracy patent appeal
By Ed Oswald | Published November 27, 2007, 3:35 PM
The two companies will need to pay Michigan-based z4 nearly $160 million in total penalties for infringing on the company's rights to patents surrounding anti-piracy technologies.
z4's technology provided a method for software to be activated once it is installed. The same technology could also be used to deactivate the software in an effort to deter piracy.
David Colvin, the man who owns the rights to the patents as well as z4, sued both companies in 2004. A federal jury found Microsoft and Autodesk liable for patent infringement in April of last year and ordered both companies to compensate Colvin.
Microsoft was found liable for $115 million in fines and $25 million for willful patent infringement, plus any court costs. Autodesk was ordered to pay $18 million.
Both companies argued that the patents were invalid, and asked for a new trial. That motion was denied in August of last year. The companies went on to appeal the original decision, which was upheld by the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on November 16.
It is not clear whether the two companies plan to take the case any further, although a Microsoft spokesperson did offer that the decision affected neither Vista nor Office 2007, and no changes would need to be made to XP or Office 2003.
Autodesk and z4 could not be immediately reached for comment.
Anyone else see the irony of infringing on anti-piracy parents?
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Does that thingy they are using also relate to the Genuine Advantage crap that Micro$oft forces us to use?
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Microshaft should just buy out z4 like they should have when they lost in August oh well they never learn.
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Patents are a bunch of garbage nowadays. People just create them and sit there doing nothing with them waiting for someone to screw up and use it and sue them.
It is ridiculous.
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Pit$ingo will be entering with his MS hate speeches any minute now.
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I'd expect more lawsuits to follow from that patent owner. The system Autodesk use isnt just used by them, its quite widespread.
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May as well make some phone calls to Adobe next... and while piracy advocates might be laughing at the cost of anti-piracy to companies now potentially being higher than piracy itself -- a stupid patent lawsuit like this is still a stupid patent lawsuit.
This system makes sense.
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The patent owner has a patent on the use of two passwords in verification. Is it too late for me to get patents for three, four, and five password verification systems?
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