Tags: Apple, Microsoft

Microsoft gets legal relief from federal appeals court

In what would come as a big relief to the software giant Microsoft, A federal appeals court overturned a $521 million patent infringement ruling against them. It also ordered the lower court to retry the same case again. The court in the ruling said that it found the ruling of the lower court ignored two key arguments from the software company. The case is related to the claims by privately held firm Eolas Technologies Inc., which claimed that the web browser developed by the company had infringed on technology developed by them.

The ruling by the lower court raised speculations that Microsoft would require to alter Internet Explorer to settle the case, which would result in a broken browser incapable of running certain applets, or mini-applications, that run on Web pages.

Microsoft had also won a ruling by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office last year, which invalidated the same claim by the Eolas Technologies Inc. Microsoft Spokesperson Stacy Drake, said in a statement: “We have maintained throughout this process that the Eolas patent is not valid and today’s ruling is a clear affirmation of our position”. Representatives of the plaintiffs were not available for press statements.

Microsoft now is preparing to present its case again while the courts decide on a date for the retrial. Some big names came in support for the software giant in this particular legal case, which included the World Wide Web Consortium. They argued that the preexisting inventions invalidated the claims made by the privately held firm.