August 5, 2008
Microsoft Is Again in the Crosshairs of a University-Based Patent Suit
A federal appeals court has given the company that manages a set of lucrative technology patents for the University of Rochester another chance to pursue its infringement claims against Microsoft. The ruling reverses a lower-court finding that said the university-based inventors intended to mislead the patent office.
The patents cover a technique for computer-driven printing technology known as Blue Noise Mask. A company called Research Corporation Technologies, in Arizona, has the rights to commercialize the patents from the university and has collected tens of millions of dollars in royalties for the university by licensing the patents to companies.
In a ruling released late last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said a district-court judge in Arizona had erred when he ruled in 2006 that the university’s patents were unenforceable.
The judge had ruled against the patents after finding that the two University of Rochester inventors did not disclose previously published articles about their invention to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. But the appeals court said the findings in the publication “were not material to their inventive activity,” and so the inventors were not required to report it.
Research Corporation Technologies, based in Tucson, Ariz., first sued Microsoft in 2001.
The appeals court vacated the ruling and, in an ususual move, ordered the case to be re-heard by another district-court judge. —Goldie Blumenstyk
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