A Texas jury ruled Microsoft Corp. and Autodesk Inc. must pay $133 million to a Michigan man who claimed he was owed royalties for inventions to prevent software piracy.
A jury in Tyler on Wednesday awarded Z4 Technologies, founded by David Colvin of Commerce Township, Mich., $115 million from Microsoft and $18 million from Autodesk. Colvin claimed two patents were infringed by software including Microsoft’s Office and Windows XP and Autodesk’s AutoCAD.
The verdict is the second- largest patent loss for Microsoft, the world’s biggest software maker.
The company is fighting a 2003 verdict in Chicago of $521 million for patent infringement over a feature in its Internet Explorer. The Z4 verdict continued a pattern of victories in East Texas federal courts for patent owners claiming infringement.
It is “the largest amount of damages awarded by a jury in a patent case” in the district, said local patent lawyer Michael Smith, who wasn’t part of the case, quoted in a court release.
Microsoft said it will continue to fight the case.
Owners won 11 of 13 patent trials in the Eastern District of Texas from 1994 to March, 85 percent, compared with a national average of 67 percent, according to LegalMetric LLC, a St. Louis-based company that tracks such cases.
A jury in nearby Marshall, also in the Eastern District, last week awarded $74 million to TiVo Inc. in its suit with Doug las County-based EchoStar Communications Corp. claiming infringement of a patent for video-recording technology.
