Could a Patent Lawsuit Stop the Xbox 360? - console
(hx) 01:08 AM CEST - Apr,16 2006
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An
injunction that could disrupt the distribution of the Xbox 360 game console is
possible because of a patent suit that Lucent Technologies has filed against
Microsoft, according to attorneys who practice intellectual property (IP) law.
Lucent filed suit against the software vendor last month in a U.S. District
Court in San Diego. The networking company, which currently is in the process of
merging with Alcatel, says Microsoft has violated a patent it holds on the
built-in MPEG-2 decoding capability of the console. At issue is patent number
5,227,878, "Adaptive Coding and Decoding of Frames and Fields of Video."
A Stronger Case? - Lucent may have a stronger case for an injunction
to block the sale of Xbox 360s than NTP did to shut down BlackBerry service in
the recently resolved case against Research in Motion (RIM), Akerly says. That's
because Lucent makes and sells technology, whereas NTP was simply a holder of
the patent under dispute in its case, he explains, adding, "I don't know for
sure, but it wouldn't surprise me if Lucent practiced the patent, unlike an
NTP." A Lucent representative reached Friday could not comment on whether
the company has technology based on the patent in question. NTP eventually won a
$612.5 million settlement from RIM in its case. Lucent and Microsoft's case is
more complicated than that one, however, because the companies have clashed over
the patent before, says Paul Lesko, an associate attorney who leads the
Intellectual Property Litigation Group at SimmonsCooper LLC, based in Chicago.
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Updated:10:44 AM CEST Sep,20
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