Microsoft has managed to escape unscathed from a recent legal battle in which tech company InterDigital accused the software giant of patent infringement relating to Microsoft’s Nokia Lumia mobile phones.
The results of the International Trade Commission’s (ITC) decision made its rounds through the headlines yesterday, making an appearance in the U.K. based newspaper, The Register. Reporter Kelly Fiveash said that the ITC concluded that Microsoft had “not violated InterDigital’s patents” and, consequently, dropped their investigation.
InterDigital boss Willam J. Merritt seemed unfazed by the decisions, telling Fiveash that the decision will “only have a minor impact on business.”
The lawsuit started eight years ago, according to a story by Engadget, when current Microsoft holding Nokia came under attack for, according to InterDigital, infringing on patents for 3G technology.
As a result, InterDigital asked the ITC to band the import of Microsoft Lumia phones into the United States.
Things seemed to be going InterDigital’s way when, this past April, a judge “ruled … that Microsoft was using InterDigital’s patents.
Things very nearly didn’t go the company’s way — a judge had ruled in April that Microsoft was using InterDigital’s patents, which would have forced the folks in Redmond to pay up.
Microsoft has expressed its gratitude for the favorable decision. They were quoted as saying that InterDigital has long been a sore spot for the company and that InterDigital’s business practices may have been in violation of anti-trust laws.
Though InterDigital waxed stoic after the decision, there’s a very public perception that the company was trying to “extort” cash from Microsoft under the threat of an import embargo.
InterDigital had pushed for an import ban on the assumption that it would be collecting huge royalties from a mobile giant. There’s no disguising that this is a major failure for InterDigital.
Reports of the decision did not give details as to why the ITC decided in favor of Microsoft.
