Micro$oft's WMP Not Licensed for MP3s

[Anacoluthon64]

Micro$oft loses MP3 patent case ...

... and its lawyers come off sounding like sore losers.

'Luthon64

[bluegray V]

I must admit, I don't know all the finer details of the case, but I also understood that Fraunhofer owned mp3. How can Alcatel-Lucent now suddenly sue people for using mp3's if they paid license fees to Fraunhofer?

[Anacoluthon64]

It is true that Fraunhofer IIS owns the patents for MP3 technology, but the patent only covers the encoding principles, not the actual method of taking a specific digital audio signal (e.g. from an ordinary 44 kHz CD) and turning it into an MP3 encoded signal.  The latter technology is where Lucent comes in.

An analogous patent is that for the RSA cryptosystem.  The patent covers the mathematical principles, but not the method(s) of computation.  A fast RSA implementation may involve Montgomery multiplication, which would be covered by a separate patent.

'Luthon64

[Anacoluthon64]

Punchbag or villain?  Micro$oft gets slapped yet again, this time by the EU's second highest court in M$'s appeal against the 2004 EU antitrust ruling in which M$ was ordered to pay almost $1 billion in fines.  To add some sting to a smarting cheek, a class action lawsuit against M$ was filed in Arizona recently.

'Luthon64