Apple and LG Win Patent Case Against Alcatel-Lucent

[Akshay Masand]

A federal jury recently found that products made by Apple and LG do not infringe on video compression patents asserted by Alcatel-Lucent’s Multimedia Patent trust. The decision brought to an end the nearly two-year long case which previously kept going back and forth. According to Bloomberg, in the suit heard by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California, Alcatel-Lucent was seeking damages of a whopping $172.3 million in royalties from Apple’s alleged infringement of three patents and $9.1 million from LG over two patents. The suit was specifically aimed at models in the iPhone, iPod, iPad, and MacBook Pro lineups.

The trial as a whole was a direct result of Multimedia Patent Trust’s initial 2010 complaint in which the Paris-based company claimed that Apple and LG copied their intellectual property related to efficient data transmission technology used in video transmission. According to Frederick Lorig, Alcatel-Lucent’s lawyer, at least 33 other companies have paid over $190 million to license the patents, but the defense claimed it was already covered by an industry-wide “pay-as-you-go” pool.

The jury ended up siding with Apple and LG. Apple attorney Juanita Brooks responded to the verdict by saying “we are very pleased with the verdict."

It seems like Apple will have one less patent case to worry about going forward.

Source: Bloomberg

[Luie82]

Wait Apple would've had to Pay 172.3m while 33 others paid 190m combined, That sounds a bit fishy

[scroogelives]

More cash you have the more the patent trolls will want! And for some company's it may have been cheaper and safer to pay up than chance a court battle!