Jury decides in Microsoft’s favour in patent dispute with Motorola

A US District Court jury in Seattle has awarded $15 million in damages to Microsoft in a long-running dispute over the terms of some patent licenses.

In the trial between Microsoft and Motorola the jury decided in favour of Microsoft yesterday, saying Motorola Mobility breached its agreements to provide licenses to certain of its patents on fair and reasonable terms.

The US District Court jury in Seattle, after a deliberation that lasted three hours, also awarded Microsoft around $15 million in damages. Microsoft had sought $29 million.

With the decision Microsoft has won both rounds of a patent battle that saw the court decide that the worth of Motorola's patents was worth much less than what the company had initially demanded from Microsoft. Motorola is now owned by Google.

''This is a landmark win for all who want products that are affordable and work well together,'' David Howard, a Microsoft deputy general counsel, said in a statement. ''The jury's verdict is the latest in a growing list of decisions by regulators and courts telling Google to stop abusing patents.''

Motorola spokesman William Moss said in a statement, ''We're disappointed in this outcome but look forward to an appeal of the novel legal issues raised in this case. In the meantime, we'll focus on building great products that people love.''

The issue before the jury was whether Motorola, breached its agreements for providing certain technology to Microsoft on fair and reasonable terms.

The dispute between the two parties could be traced to 2010 when Motorola asked Microsoft for royalty payments for its technology that contributed to the H.264 video compression standard and 802.11 wireless networking standard.

Microsoft, though not averse to paying a royalty, found the 2.25 per cent of the product price that Motorola had sought rather steep.

Motorola had set up the terms to ensure non-acceptance by Microsoft which would allow Motorola to sue for an injunction on its products, Microsoft  told the court.

Patents that go into defining standards, also known as standard-essential patents, are usually granted with the understanding that they would be licensed under fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms.

Standard patents have been often misused to set back competition and both the US Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission have been looking into the malpractice. The FTC, for instance, had warned against the abuse of standard-essential patents to call for bans on sales of products.