Colin Dixon, IP Media Practice Manager, The Diffusion Group

With last week's announcement that Alcatel is suing Microsoft over patent infringement, a new chapter in the complex and decaying relationship between the two industry giants has startedi. According to Alcatel, it is simply protecting its intellectual property. According to Microsoft, the suit is merely related to its dispute with Lucent over X-Box video processing.

Is either company being completely honest? Of course not! In Alcatel's case, it is an error of omission; in Microsoft's, it is an error of legitimacy.

The History

Alcatel filed two separate lawsuits against Microsoft on Friday, November 17 in a federal court in Tyler, Texasii. While specifics are few, we know that three of the seven patent infringements alleged against Microsoft relate directly to Microsoft's IPTV solution. The patents in question stem from the work of three brilliant Oracle engineers: Mark Porter, Dave Pawson, and Dan Weaver. Along with many other team members, these three engineers developed the Oracleiii Video Server and came up with some very creative solutions in the area of 'trick play' (fast-forward and rewind) features, three of which were patented. These patents were sold in 2000 to Thirdspace, a company which Alcatel eventually acquired in April 2003.

When Alcatel announced its partnership with Microsoft in February 2005, some of the ex-Oracle engineers helped with the integration of Microsoft's IPTV solutioniv, working closely with Microsoft engineers in Mountain View . Today, several ex-Oracle employees, including some very senior engineers from the video server team, now work for the Microsoft IPTV group. Is it likely that the IP covered in the three patents was transferred to the Microsoft IPTV products in the process? This seems extremely likely. Could these patents have anything to do with X-Box? Extremely unlikely.

But why would Alcatel choose this moment to file a lawsuit? Isn't Microsoft a key partner in Alcatel's IPTV offering?

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