Lucent takes legal action against Microsoft over Xbox 360

The patent, 5,227,878, was issued to Lucent on July 13th 1993 and called "Adaptive Coding and Decoding of Frames and Fields of Video".

It's not the first time Lucent and Microsoft have crossed swords on patents, nor indeed this one. An action started two years ago and in August 2005, the judge presiding in that case granted a summary judgement of invalidity because of a typo in the patent. That forced Lucent to get a certificate from the US patent office to correct the typo, which was issued at the end of October last year.

But, said Lucent in its filing at the end of March, Microsoft has infringed this patent by releasing the Xbox 360 console, which has MPEG2 tech - it's alleged that's a breach of the Lucent patent.

When the judge made his ruling on the patent case with the typos last year, he said that the decision was without prejudice to Lucent starting a separate action.

And so it has. It filed the action on the 28th of March in the southern district of California, San Diego.

Lucent alleges Microsoft has infringed its patent and told the firm so soon after the intro of the Xbox 360.

The firm wants a jury trial on the matter. µ