Judge Sets Aside $357,693,056.18 Judgment Against Microsoft Outlook’s Appointment-Scheduling Feature

While the judge affirmed the jury finding of infringement of Lucent’s patent claims on a “method of entering information into fields on a computer screen without using a keyboard” it set aside the jury award in Lucent Technologies v. Gateway, Inc., 580 F.3d 1301, 1308 (Fed. Cir. 2009), cert. denied, 130 S. Ct. 3324 (2010).

While users (like me) directly infringed on the claims by using Microsoft Outlook’s appointment-scheduling feature, Microsoft (among others) were found indirectly liable on both inducement and contributory infringement theories. However, suing little customers does not make good business sense.  Lucent went after Microsoft, Dell, et al (i.e., deep pockets).

In vacating the jury award, the judge noted that while the feature was available in Outlook, it was not necessarily used by every consumer.