The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday ruled against Microsoft in an appeal tied to a major patent dispute, ordering the Redmond-based company to pay a record $290 million patent fine. Supreme Court justices voted unanimously to uphold an earlier judgement stating Microsoft had infringed patents belonging to small Canadian software firm i4i. The judgement comes following a legal battle that began in 2007 when i4i sued the software giant claiming its Microsoft Word productivity software infringed on i4i patents. I4i was awarded $290 million by a federal judge at that time, and Microsoft would proceed to appeal the ruling for four years despite agreeing to alter its software in order to remove the infringing features.
Microsoft ordered to pay $290M patent fine
Updated Dec 19th, 2018 7:17PM EST
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