Alcatel, the French manufacturer of telecommunications gear, has filed two separate complaints against Microsoft in a Texas court, claiming that Microsoft has infringed on seven Alcatel patents. The court documents do not give examples of Microsoft’s alleged bad behavior, but we can get some idea of what’s at stake by looking at the cited patents.

The patents are 6,339,830; 6,874,090; and 6,661,799.

The first two relate to “Deterministic user authentication service for communication networks”, issued on the 15th of January 2002 and the 29th of March 2005, respectively. And the last is called “Method and Apparatus for Faciltating Peer-to-Peer Application Communication”, issued on the 9th of December 2003.

Alcatel alleges that Microsoft provides components from the US used overseas which infringe these patents, causing damage to Alcatel.

Alcatel has not revealed which Microsoft products it believes are in breach but says they relate to digital video and network communication which means it could be anything from Microsofts IPTV stack or the XBOX 360.

The company said in a statement that it has been in licensing talks with Microsoft, but that the talks had recently broken off. Alcatel is asking the judge for triple damages based on a claim of “willful infringement” by Microsoft. Microsoft has yet to file a response.

Via: The Inquirer | ARS Technica