Microsoft Can’t Shake $7 Million Patent Loss at Federal Circuit

Microsoft Corp. owes $7 million to an inventor after the Federal Circuit upheld a jury verdict finding that the tech giant infringed a database patent.

Michael Philip Kaufman owns the now-expired US Patent No. 7,885,981, which covers a user-friendly interface for interacting with complex computer databases. Kaufman accused Microsoft in 2016 of infringing the patent with its Dynamic Data function in its Visual Studio software.

Microsoft failed to show that a jury didn’t have enough evidence to levy a $7 million infringement penalty against it, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled in a precedential opinion ...