[Ip-health] Microsoft receives a compulsory license on Patent 5,293,615 for MS Office suite

[James Love]

Carlos Armando Amado "is the inventor and owner of U.S. Patent 5,293,615
("the '615 patent"), which is directed to a "point and shoot interface
for linking database records to spreadsheets whereby data of a record is
automatically reformatted and loaded upon issuance of a recalculation
command."

Microsoft was found to have infringed the patent.  Amado asked for a
license of $2.00 for every copy of Microsoft Office.  Microsoft asked a
federal court in California for a compulsory license on the patent, at a
much lower royalty rate.  The judge gave Microsoft a compulsory license
with a royalty of $.12 per copy of MS Office. Microsoft is asking for a
lower royalty rate.  Amado wants a higher royalty.

On February 26, 2008, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
agreed the compulsory license was appropriate, and asked the district
court to reconsider the royalty amount.

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James Love, Knowledge Ecology International (KEI)
http://www.keionline.org, mailto:james.love@keionline.org
voice +1.202.332.2670, fax +1.202.332.2673, US mobile +1.202.361.3040, Geneva mobile +41.76.413.6584

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