Court rules Microsoft, Autodesk must pay $US133m

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A Michigan man on Wednesday was awarded $US133 million by a Texas jury in a patent dispute against Microsoft and Autodesk, a spokeswoman for Microsoft said.

Microsoft was ordered to pay $US115 million, and Autodesk was required to pay $US18 million to David Colvin, the founder of z4 Technologies, who sued the two software companies in federal court, claiming they appropriated two of his anti-piracy software patents with Microsoft's Office and Windows XP and Autodesk's AutoCad programs, the spokeswoman said.

"While we are disappointed with this verdict, we continue to contend that there was no infringement of any kind and that the facts in this case show that Microsoft developed its own product activation technologies well before z4 Technologies filed for its patent," Microsoft spokesman Jack Evans said in an email response.

Officials for Autodesk were unavailable and attempts to reach Colvin were unsuccessful.

The Microsoft spokeswoman said the company was awaiting resolution of all issues by the trial court before making any further decisions regarding its next steps.

She said the court has not yet ruled on Microsoft's contention that z4 knowingly withheld information from the US Patent and Trademark Office of other companies' product activation technologies when submitting its patent applications.