Jury Tells Microsoft To Pay Uniloc $388 Million In Antipiracy Patent Case

A jury in a long-running federal court case in Rhode Island found Wednesday that Microsoft infringed on Uniloc's patent, Reuters reported. Microsoft said it will appeal the decision.

The patent in question, titled "System for Software Recognition," and filed in 1996, describes a registration system that allows digital data or software to be able to run only if an appropriate licensing procedure has been followed. The technology includes an algorithm that generates a registration number that's unique to the platform on which the data or software is used.

Uniloc uses its antipiracy technology in two products.

The first is NetAnchor, a solution that protects against security breaches by requesting a sample of the hardware "DNA" of any device that attempts to communicate with a critical asset and grants access when there is a match with a list of authorized devices.

The second is SoftAnchor, which provides copy protection for software and games to prevent the creation, distribution and use of unauthorized copies.

In a statement e-mailed to ChannelWeb.com, David Bowermaster, a Microsoft spokesperson, wrote, "We are very disappointed in the jury verdict. We believe that we do not infringe, that the patent is invalid and that this award of damages is legally and factually unsupported. We will ask the court to overturn the verdict."

Uniloc did not respond to requests for additional information at the time of publication.