REDMOND, Wash. — Jan. 30, 2006 — Microsoft Corp. did not infringe on any of the patents asserted by Research Corporation Technologies (RCT) in its lawsuit against the software company, a federal court in Arizona has ruled.
According to a final ruling issued Jan. 27, 2006, by the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona, the court found that three of six patents asserted by RCT were “unenforceable due to the patent applicants’ inequitable conduct in withholding material information from the Patent Office with an intent to deceive the Patent Office.”
Today’s decision follows a previous ruling in April 2005 in which the same court found that all claims asserted by RCT in three other patents were invalid.
“As a company that respects intellectual property rights, we are gratified that the court determined that these claims had no merit,” said Tom Burt, corporate vice president and deputy general counsel for Microsoft.
RCT claimed that certain printing and display functionality present in different versions of Microsoft® Windows® and Microsoft Office had infringed on patents it asserted involving the creation of halftones of digital images.
Microsoft was represented in district court by the firm of Klarquist Sparkman LLP of Portland, Ore., and its Tucson co-counsel, Snell & Wilmer LLP.
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