Microsoft won a fight yesterday in the spring court against AT&T. It's probably likely that this win for Microsoft will someday come back to haunt them but in the meantime they are making out like bandits. They utilize a patent from AT&T that deals with voice compression, and when they sent software outside of the country to be manufactured and sold abroad that software program goes with it. And when the states they have to pay a royalty on the use of AT&T's technology. When I sell abroad it's not covered by US law so says the spring court.
AT&T can follow up and foreign jurisdictions to enforce foreign patents if they so choose and if they have that type of standing. The Supreme Court has been taking steps to help identify some of the loopholes that seem to be present and patent law today. This most recent decision seems to indicate that the spring court would prefer for Congress to step up and fix the patent laws that are not keeping up with advances in technology today.
At issue in the case is whether Microsoft violated an AT&T patent on digital speech compression processes when it sent its Windows operating software covering that patent overseas for production and sale outside the U.S. The main legal question at issue is whether software code, which isn't patentable, is nonetheless a component of a patented device and covered by U.S. patent law that treats domestic and foreign production differently.
Source: Supreme Court's two rulings dilute power of patents - MarketWatch
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