Patent Ruling Against Microsoft Upheld

A Texas federal judge has rejected calls by Microsoft and Autodesk to hold a new trial regarding a patent infringement case it lost against David Colvin, the founder of z4 Technologies. Both companies were found guilty of infringing on Colvin's patents surrounding anti-piracy technologies, and were fined $133 million.

Colvin's patents were used in Microsoft's Office productivity suite and Windows XP operating system, as well as Autodesk's AutoCad software, the suit alleged.

In rejecting the motion by the two companies, U.S. District Judge Leonard Davis also increased the fines by $25 million. Microsoft's fine was increased to $140 million, plus $2 million in legal fees, while Autodesk's $18 million penalty was upped by $322,000.

Representatives for Microsoft and Autodesk were not immediately available for comment, while z4 technologies declined to comment.

In terms of the size of fines, the fine is the second biggest ever against Microsoft for patent violations. The biggest would be the $565 million judgment against it in the Eolas case, where it was found guilty of infringing on patents related to the embedding of plug-ins within a Web browser.

However, in other cases the payouts have been much larger. One of the largest Microsoft has had to pay was in an antitrust suit with Sun, where the company paid $1.6 billion to settle claims that it misappropriated Java technologies.