A US federal judge signed off on a $1.53 billion jury verdict in favor of Alcatel-Lucent in a digital music patent dispute against Microsoft, an Associated Press report said.
The Associated Press report said US district court judge Rudi M. Brewster in San Diego entered his judgment, concluding Microsoft's Windows Media Player software infringed on patents owned by Lucent Technologies, a US telecommunications equipment maker acquired last year by France-based Alcatel.
The damages were awarded by a jury in February, the report said.
The Associated Press report quoted Microsoft spokesman Guy Esnouf as saying that the company would challenge the ruling during a June 20 hearing, citing a US Supreme Court ruling earlier this week in favor of Microsoft in a patent lawsuit brought by AT&T.
The company claimed computers running the Windows operating system infringe on AT&T technology for a digital speech coder system, the report said.
The high court found that US patent law does not apply to software sent to foreign countries, the report said.
The report further said Mary Lou Ambrus, a spokeswoman for Alcatel-Lucent, said the company was pleased with Brewster's ruling on its case.