AT&T and Microsoft case hits Supreme Court

A LONG running patent dispute between Microsoft and AT&T has finally made it to the Supreme Court after Vole has been beaten in all the lesser courts.

According to Associated Press, the main problem is whether Vole has to shell out cash for violating an AT&T patent overseas. AT&T patented technology that converts speech into computer code, so that speech can be transmitted electronically. Vole developed similar capabilities in Windows and has acknowledged that it violated the AT&T patent domestically.

However it does not think it should pay up for infringement when its software was shipped overseas.

AT&T wants Microsoft to pay up for all those versions of Windows that were installed in each foreign computer. Vole says that all it had to was send its partners a distribution disk and if it has to pay for foreign installations AT&T should just be chasing its partners and suing them under local laws.

So far two lower federal courts ruled in favour of AT&T. The Supreme Court is expected to decide the case by July.

More here. µ