Microsoft Corp. has agreed to pay AT&T Corp. an undisclosed sum as part of an agreement to settle most of the claims in a patent infringement dispute between the companies, AT&T announced late Friday.
The dispute goes back to May 2001, when AT&T sued Microsoft for infringing on a patent related to a compression technology used to reduce the size of digital speech files. AT&T employees were granted the patent in 1984, according to a copy of AT&T's complaint.
Microsoft incorporated the patented technology in its NetMeeting online conferencing software, as well as certain versions of Windows and other products, AT&T charged. AT&T offered to license the technology to Microsoft, but Microsoft refused, according to the complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
Details of the settlement agreement, which included a stipulated judgement, are being kept confidential, said AT&T spokesman James Byrnes.
One issue between the companies has yet to be resolved and will be appealed to a U.S. federal court, with a further payment by Microsoft contingent on the outcome of that appeal, AT&T said. The companies are not disclosing what that outstanding issue is, Byrnes said.
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