Microsoft wins a David and Goliath patent battle

IN A CLASSIC CASE of it is not supposed to work like this, US software giant Microsoft has won a court battle against an Aussie inventor.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, Ric Richardson was all set to reap the lion's share of a mammoth $388 million damage award against the Vole for nicking his patented idea.

A jury agreed with him, but it turned out that a judge did not. US District Judge William Smith vacated the jury's verdict and ruled in favour of Microsoft.

Richardson designed some technology designed to deter illegal software copying. He showed it to the Vole but it said it wasn't interested. Then it came up with a version of its own and made billions.

Richardson said he was dumbfounded. It was such a shock he had to have his lawyers unravel the mess.

He claimed he was not a patent troll, saying he never really wanted lots of money out of it but was more interested in seeing that the ethically right thing was done.

However Judge Smith has been dealing with the case for a while. In fact he had handed a win to the Vole in 2006, but an appeals court overturned his decision.

The appeals court said that he should not have ruled on the case without hearing from a jury. After a jury disagreed with him, Judge Smith said that it "lacked a grasp of the issues before it and reached a finding without a legally sufficient basis".

In other words, he said that if they disagreed with him then they were stupid. We are not sure if US law allows judges to ignore juries in quite that way.

Richardson said it was just as well he had not spent any of the money. The only thing he bought out of the ordinary lately was a chicken shed.

Recently Richardson has been helping other Australian inventors get their ideas off the ground.

Microsoft said that its technology works differently from Richardson's and his patent was obvious. And the bottom line, apparently, is that the judge agreed with it. µ