Los Angeles, June 15, 2006 – The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit yesterday affirmed a patent infringement verdict won by Morrison & Foerster against Microsoft.  The patent, owned by inventor and businessman Armando Amado, covers a software application linking a spreadsheet to a database.  The appellate court upheld a June 2005 jury verdict that the patent is valid and that Microsoft infringed the patent with its sale of Office Pro products.  The District Court’s judgment had awarded Mr. Amado $6.1 million. 

The District Court entered a permanent injunction, but stayed the injunction pending appeal.  As a condition of the stay, the District Court ordered Microsoft to escrow an account covering sales of additional infringing products.  The Federal Circuit left it to the District Court to determine Mr. Amado’s share of the escrow account in light of Microsoft’s continued infringement of the patent.  Currently, the account balance is over $65 million. 

Vince Belusko, Morrison & Foerster partner and lead attorney for Mr. Amado, commented: “This ruling signals the validity of the patent and confirms Microsoft’s liability of infringement on Mr. Amado’s software program.  We are hopeful that the District Court will now award Mr. Amado substantial monies from that escrow account when the matter is returned to the court.”

In 1990 Mr. Amado developed the application that links a spreadsheet to a database in a “live link” fashion.  He approached Microsoft in 1992 to license the program for use with Microsoft’s Excel application.  Microsoft declined this offer.  Mr. Amado received his patent in 1994.  Microsoft introduced its infringing software, which linked Excel spreadsheets to Access databases, in 1995.

The attorneys from Morrison & Foerster that participated in the case include partners Vince Belusko, Charles Barquist, and Hector Gallegos, of counsel Nicole Smith (the in-court trial team), and associates Scott Moore and Monica Scheetz, all from the Los Angeles office.