Microsoft Denied Declaratory Judgment Jurisdiction a Second Time

Microsoft was unable to sustain a declaratory action brought against WebXchange to invalidate three patents covering network services.  The patents-in-suit are U.S. Patent Numbers 5,778,178; 6,212,556; and 7,340,506. According to IP 360, the USPTO has agreed to re-examine the '178 and '556 patents and has canceled the claims of the '506 patent.

On Friday U.S. District Judge Farnan sitting in Delaware, ruled that Microsoft lacked subject matter jurisdiction to bring the declaratory action, reasoning that Microsoft could not prove that the suits WebXchange filed against Microsoft customers over Microsoft's Virtual Earth Web Services and MapPoint Web Services software established an actual "case or controversy" with the software's maker.

Apparently this is the second time Microsoft has been unable to make allegations of declaratory judgment jurisdiction stick.  Back in April, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in April dismissed a similar suit Microsoft filed against WebXchange.