Trial set for February in Microsoft/Dell/Gateway case against Alcatel-Lucent

Judge Marilyn L. Huff of the Southern District of California refused to stay an upcoming trial set for February 20, 2008. The case involved allegations of patent infringement made by Alcatel-Lucent against Microsoft, Gateway, and Dell. Plaintiff Alcatel-Lucent is represented by Kirkland & Ellis LLP, while Microsoft is represented by Fish and Richardson. Gateway is represented by Howery, Dewey & Lebouf and Setlzer Caplan McMahjon Vitek. Dell is represented by Arnold & PorterLLP. Now that is a lot of lawyers. Overall, I counted 56 separate attorney appearances in this case. Should make for an interesting trial.

The patents at issue all involve video coding technology as well as patents related to a form entry system, algorithms for gesture recognition and commands to select video display modes. They are U.S. Patent Numbers 4,958,226; 4,383,272; 4,763,356; 5,347,295; and 4,439,759.

Microsoft was successful in dismissing Alcatel's claims for willful infringement of these patents, relying on the new standard for willful infringement enunciated by the Federal Circuit in Seagate.

IP 360 reports that "Lucent, which merged with Alcatel in 2006, originally sued Gateway and Dell over 12 different patents in 2003, but Microsoft stepped into the case on their behalf to file a motion for declaratory action. Lucent claimed that many of the computers made by Gateway and Dell infringed on its patents by using Microsoft programs such as Outlook and Quicken, and by applying certain types of digital display and interfacing technologies."

I'm attaching the Judge's order granting Microsoft's motion for partial summary judgment on the issue of willfulness because I think it is a good example of the current application of the new Seagate standard.
AlcatelOrderMPSJNoWillful.htm

Peter Sklar and Microsoft Resolve Patent Dispute

Individual patent holder Peter Sklar and Microsoft resolved their dispute over infringement allegations stemming from claim 5 of U.S. Patent Nos. 6,025,843 and in claims 11 and 19 in 6,243,094. The parties entered a stipulation dismissing all claims with prejudice. The case was pending in the ED of Texas, case No. 2:06-CV-7, before Judge Leonard Davis. In July, Judge Davis entered a claim construction ruling favorable to Sklar, which prompted a motion to reconsider by Microsoft, which was promptly denied. Those orders are attached below. From the looks of the case history and the claims construction ruling, one can speculate that some kind of settlement was reached. The claims at issue were drawn to user interfaces. From Judge Davis' claims construction order:

"Sklar co-developed an improved user interface for performing computer database searches
and filtering search results that resulted in U.S. Patent No. 5,790,121 (“the ‘121 patent”). The
improved user interface uses selective clustering of the items to be displayed. Selective clustering is a way for the user interface to group items that will not fit side-by-side in the display area due to crowding, while leaving ungrouped those items that can be displayed without interfering with one another."
SklarclaimconstructionOrder.pdfSklarreconsidDeniedOrder.pdf