Lucent v. Gateway, Dell, & Microsoft (Fed. Cir. 2008)
Lucent's two patents cover a compression method for MP3 digital audio files. The case originally resulted in a $1.5 billion jury award for Lucent. The district court, however set aside the jury verdict. That decision is affirmed here on appeal. Lucent's problems stem from (1) joint ownership of its '080 patent and (2) failure to provide even one specific instance when the Microsoft's encoder actually infringed the '457 patent.
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"Lucent has failed to provide sufficient evidence to establish that the High Quality encoder actually runs on Windows Media Player and thus it would be too speculative to conclude that Windows Media Player necessarily infringes the '457 patent." |
This case provides important lessons for both inventorship and proving infringement. More to come.
