The lawsuit by Lucent against Microsoft concerning a patent infringement over the Xbox 360's use of MPEG-2 decoding might be aiming to halt Xbox 360 sales, it has emerged. Lucent, who claim that Microsoft's Xbox 360 violates a patent patent that details how video frames are compressed, is seeking an injunction that could put Xbox 360 sales on hold.
Lucent's patent battle against Microsoft goes back several years and began in 2003 when Lucent sued Dell and Gateway. In that suit, Lucent alleged that the included Microsoft operating system infringed on several video compression related patents, including patent 5,227,878. Dell and Gateway argued that they were merely resellers of the software and - because of prior indemnity agreements - asked Microsoft to step in.
Microsoft has yet to respond to the new suit. This could turn ugly, so keep tuned for more details.