they better use that money to make better adsl2+/wirelessN routers!

Wait Wait Wait...
MP3 is 18 years old?

Could it be that Alcatel-Lucent has been waiting all this time so they can sue the pants off all the companies (especially lucrative MS) using MP3? Say it ain't so!

Then again, FLAC FTW!

It's a rather strange result. The amount of money is *vast* when licensing the technology is already shown to cost $16m for a company of Microsoft's size - even 3x that amount is only $50m, one thirtieth of the final sum.

They must have used RIAA mathematics.

It seems to be an issue with the system that has two possible licensers, and one of them has decided that it has a patent in MP3 that isn't covered by the joint MP3 licensing mechanism. This patent was applied for in 1998, a year before design was started on MP3, yet the joint licensing agreement was done in 1991 (IIRC) that should have covered all prior patents - Microsoft are claiming that the patent was pre-dated.

Regardless this is bad news for everyone involved. I guess the patent in question is close to expiry, but maybe it will drive people and companies to incorporate license-free formats like OGG, and utilise that for media formats instead of MP3. AAC is another royalty-free codec (AACplus isn't however).

Apple must be worried, with nearly 100m iPods out there - the per-device licensing fee would be higher than the per-computer fees that Microsoft was hit for.

I'm pretty sure this will be appealed in favour of MS. From what I've read MS already licensed the tech from that German firm a long time ago..

I think whoever awarded Lucent-Alcatel 1.5 Billion needs a kick in the nuts.

Maybe this will spur the use of oggs.

wooooooooohhh...pay MS and everybody else pay, too.