Microsoft ordered to pay $8.9M in patent case
C|Net | at | by Mike
A jury in U.S. federal court found that Microsoft infringed on a Guatemalan inventor's 1994 patent on technology linking the company's Access and Excel programs, and ordered the world's largest software maker to pay $8.9 million in damages.
A jury in the U.S. District Court of Central California told Microsoft to pay the award to Carlos Armando Amado for software that uses a single spreadsheet to link Excel, a spreadsheet and calculation program, with the Access database application.
The jury award takes into account Microsoft software sold between March 1997 and July 2003. U.S. District Judge David Carter will review the case to determine how much, if any, additional damages should be awarded for programs sold to date, plaintiff's attorney Vincent Belusko said.