Yesterday's stunning court victory—the obliteration of a $1.52 billion adverse patent judgement—could benefit more than just Microsoft.
Recap: In February, a jury delivered the largest patent award in history—against Microsoft.
Alcatel-Lucent claimed that two of its patents pertaining to MP3 technology were not covered by a $16 million license Microsoft had obtained from Fraunhofer. The patents were originally developed jointly with AT&T's Bell Labs before Bell Labs' spinoff. Lucent, which had been Bell Labs, filed the lawsuit against Microsoft before being acquired by Alcatel, thereby becoming Alcatel-Lucent last year.