Microsoft awarded US$242 million verdict in Cortana patent lawsuit

By Blake Brittain

(Reuters) – Microsoft must pay patent owner IPA Technologies $242 million, a federal jury in Delaware said on Friday after ruling that Microsoft’s Cortana virtual assistant software infringed on an IPA patent.

The jury agreed with the IPA, after a week-long trial, that Microsoft’s speech recognition technology violates the IPA’s patent rights in computer communications software.

IPA is a subsidiary of patent licensing company Wi-LAN, which is jointly owned by Canadian technology company Quarterhill and two investment firms. It bought the patent and others for Siri Inc from SRI International, which Apple acquired in 2010 and whose technology it used in its Siri virtual assistant.

“We remain confident that Microsoft never infringed the IPA patents and will appeal,” said a Microsoft spokesperson.

Representatives for the IPA and Wi-LAN did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the verdict.

The IPA filed the lawsuit in 2018, accusing Microsoft of infringing patents related to personal digital assistants and voice-based data navigation.

The case was later reduced to a patent IPA. Microsoft argued that it does not infringe and that the patent is invalid.

The IPA has also sued Google and Amazon over their patents. Amazon defeated the IPA case in 2021, and Google’s case is still ongoing.

(Reporting by Blake Brittain in Washington; Editing by Aurora Ellis)