A U.S. International Trade Commission judge has ruled that Microsoft infringed on a number of patents from Motorola Mobility Holdings when it produced its Xbox 360 console.
The Google subsidiary had previously claimed that Microsoft's Xbox 360 infringed on five of its patents, including video decoding and wi-fi technology from the company.
A judge yesterday agreed that Microsoft has infringed on four of these patents, although he threw out one of the claims.
The judge's findings will now be referred to a full commission board, who will review the decision and issue a final ruling in August.
If the commission agrees with the judge, Motorola Mobility will have the chance to block imports of Xbox 360 hardware from entering the U.S., unless Microsoft can reach a settlement agreement with the company.
"Microsoft continues to infringe Motorola Mobility's patent portfolio, and we remain confident in our position," said Becki Leonard, a spokeswoman for Motorola Mobility, said to Bloomberg. "This case was filed in response to Microsoft’s litigate-first patent attack strategy, and we look forward to the full commission's ruling in August."
However, a spokesperson for Microsoft said that the company remains confident that the commission will overrule the judge, and rule in favor of Microsoft. "Motorola will be held to its promise to make its standard-essential patents available on fair and reasonable terms," it said, referring to a lawsuit which Microsoft filed against Motorola back in 2010.
"including video decoding and wi-fi technology"
do they mean that microsoft stole the coding for these features? or is it illegal to use video decoding and wifi technology in any product you invent? cause then there is a lot of devices that motorola should be suing :/
I'm surprised it had to go to court, when Microsoft gathered a bunch of it's patents to sue any company making an Android phone, the phone makers all just agreed to pay the licencing fees (I think they were a few dollars per phone).
The issue isn't that Microsoft doesn't want to pay licensing fees, it's that they feel the licensing fees motorola is demanding are too much.
Motorola's licensing fees are based off the price of the product.For example, the 360 is primarily a gaming device; the patents are related to optional supported features; I'd presume XBL's VoD. This is a minority of the features of the 360, but they'd be paying royalties on the full price of the xbox 360 rather than a percentage of that price which is reasonable to the scope in which the tech is used. Similarly with Windows 7, it's primarily an operating system, but has features that support video encoding/decoding; they are not it's primary purpose, but Microsoft would be charged royalties based off the full price of the product.
do they mean that microsoft stole the coding for these features? or is it illegal to use video decoding and wifi technology in any product you invent? cause then there is a lot of devices that motorola should be suing :/
Motorola's licensing fees are based off the price of the product.For example, the 360 is primarily a gaming device; the patents are related to optional supported features; I'd presume XBL's VoD. This is a minority of the features of the 360, but they'd be paying royalties on the full price of the xbox 360 rather than a percentage of that price which is reasonable to the scope in which the tech is used. Similarly with Windows 7, it's primarily an operating system, but has features that support video encoding/decoding; they are not it's primary purpose, but Microsoft would be charged royalties based off the full price of the product.
That's my understanding anyway.