It's way too early to declare the battle between Microsoft and arch-rival Alcatel-Lucent over. Last week, a judge upheld a big jury decision against Microsoft and tacked on some interest. That just made the defendant a little angrier.
The state of affairs between Microsoft and French telecommunications firm Alcatel-Lucent, the current holder of patents developed by the old Bell Laboratories, remains contentious. Last Thursday, a US district judge in Southern California upheld an April jury verdict against Microsoft for violating a series of patents Alcatel holds for how a user selects a calendar entry from a menu ($357.7 million) and the use of styluses on touch-screen devices ($10.4 million). Judge Marilyn Huff opted to charge interest on both rulings in the interim, raising the award to $512 million.
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