RSSMicrosoft Countersues Lucent Over Xbox
By Ed Oswald | Published May 16, 2006, 3:25 PM
Microsoft struck back at Lucent late Monday, filing a countersuit in an attempt to have the company's patent infringement lawsuit dismissed. Additionally, it accused Lucent of violating several Microsoft patents.
Lucent claims video decoding technology within the Xbox 360 infringes on its patents. It said Microsoft had failed to license the next generation system, and filed suit in April.
Gateway and Dell were originally sued over the patent in 2003, however Microsoft assisted the companies in fighting the case by filing a declaratory judgment complaint in response. The patent was later thrown out over typographical errors.
Lucent then filed a revision to the patent that specified it covered digital video. This allowed Lucent to sue Microsoft directly, now alleging that its proprietary technologies were included within the Xbox 360 gaming console.
In the countersuit, Microsoft claims that two patents from Lucent are not valid, as well as accusing the communications equipment company of infringing on the Redmond company's own patents. A spokesperson for Microsoft expressed disappointment that Lucent had chosen litigation over negotiations.
Lucent was not commenting on the situation.
Actually--this is exactly how it SHOULD work. E.g. : "My company has the lawyers that have told me for YEARS about how your company violates our patents, but hey, I am not a prickface, and they are not hurting my business. However, now that you are nit-picking over what we have done that has HELPED your business and you are sueing us, well...those lawyers will be of use after all."
--The above is a hypothetical example only, and has no warranties of any kind, expressed or implied :D
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..you can't sue me, I'll sue you back! :)
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This patent #*&! is getting way out of hand, and very, very silly. Is this the new business trend nowadays? These companies are wasting their time, money and productivity that could be used to invent better technologies.
It's just stupid, flat out.
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so much waste of money... what about spending the time and money it takes to process these cases, intead procecuting criminals and investigating actual crimes???
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I just love how business is run nowaday. File patents and sue some years down the road. It's sick to see all these mis-managed company wasting all their time and money on it instead of thinking how to turn around the company. But again, they are mis-managed.
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Will this silliness ever end! Patent law really needs to be reviewed. Did this Lucent outfit make the XBOX? Pretty soon we will see Kodak sue others for making pictures.
Sheesh!
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Yah, then see IMB sue Dell and other companies for making computers.
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Oh here we go. honestly, can anyone remember the last time MS sued anyone, first?
I know the response will be "Yeah they are too busy being sued".. but I think its very interesting...
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Actually, I do remember. Last July, Microsoft sued former employee Kai-Fu Lee and Google for breach of employee confidentiality and non-compete agreement.
Although the terms of settlement were not disclosed, it appears that Microsoft's concerns were satisfied by something other than money, so it might be better to ask if anyone can remember the last time Microsoft sued anyone first FOR MONEY. Lawyers will tell you that you can't squeeze blood out of a turnip. To Microsoft, everybody else is a turnip. To everybody else, Microsoft is definitely NOT a turnip.
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