The multi-billion dollar computer giant Microsoft Co. plans to
appeal a federal jury’s decision that awarded the University
of California and software firm Eolas Technologies Inc. $521
million in a patent infringement case.
The jury’s verdict, which was handed down Aug. 11, found
Microsoft guilty of violating a patent filed in 1993 by Michael
Doyle, a former researcher at UC San Francisco and founder of
Eolas, and the developer of a computer program that allows an
Internet to user to interact with his browser through 3-D
visualizations.
Microsoft, however, denies that it infringed upon the patent
when a similar program appeared in its own Internet software, which
prompted Doyle to file a lawsuit in 1999.
“We still firmly maintain there was no infringement on our
part, that this patent was not valid, and that any of the
functionality in question resulted in the research and development
of Microsoft’s own engineers,” said company spokesman
Jim Desler.
Desler added that Doyle was not even the first person to develop
this type of technology. He points to another researcher, Pei Wei
at UC Berkeley, who allegedly created similar interactive software
that was released in 1991. Doyle and Wei have publicly disputed who
developed the program first.
The judge in the case ruled that the jury could not take this
dispute into consideration.
Trey Davis, a spokesman for the University of California Office
of the President, dismissed Microsoft’s arguments.
“The verdict speaks for itself. There doesn’t seem
to be any question there was a patent infringement,” he
said.
Desler said Microsoft plans to appeal the decision within the
next couple weeks. Even if another court rules in favor of the UC
and Eolas, an appeals process could delay payments by a year or
more.
“This money isn’t going to show up for
Christmas,” Davis said.
Microsoft also stands a decent chance of reversing the decision
through the appeals process. An international corporation like
Microsoft can carry plenty of clout in the courts, said Lynn
LoPucki, a professor of law at UCLA.
“What they have is a lot of political influence and a very
good name, and that’s important through the settlement
process,” he said.
However, LoPucki also said that upwards of 60 percent of lower
court rulings are affirmed by an appeals court, which bodes well
for the plaintiffs.
Out of the $521 million awarded in the case, the UC would stand
to gain about 10 percent of that, or $52 million, a welcome
windfall for a university system that had over $400 million slashed
from its state funding in July.
Davis said the majority of that money, should it be awarded,
would go to education and research programs at UCSF because the
technology was developed there. The rest would be put in the
UC’s general fund for disbursement to the other campuses.
UCSF had about $10.8 million cut from its funding in the last
state budget.
“(The settlement money) lifts the tide a little bit of the
total pool,” Davis said.