Trade commission rules for Alcatel-Lucent in Microsoft patent case

Alcatel-Lucent scored a victory Tuesday when the U.S. International Trade Commission rebuffed a patent infringement claim filed by Microsoft.

The commission reversed an earlier ruling by an administrative law judge, who found Alcatel-Lucent had violated one of Microsoft's patents.

The commission ruled that Alcatel-Lucent did not infringe on patent No. 6,421,439 patent, which deals with technology to identify and affiliate a user in a telephone network, according to the commission's decision.

In its ruling, the commission noted Alcatel-Lucent did not infringe on three of Microsoft's claims because of the way in which the wording for the claims had been modified.

"We are pleased with the decision and always believed we had strong case," an Alcatel-Lucent representative said.

Microsoft was not immediately available for comment.

Last year, Microsoft filed a complaint with the ITC, alleging Alcatel-Lucent had violated four of its patents. The other three included patents 6,430,289, 6,263,064 and 6,728,357, which also relate to communications technology. The administrative law judged had ruled in Alcatel-Lucent's favor regarding those three patents.