U.S. court rules for LG on patent suit by French company

A U.S. federal jury ruled in favor of LG Electronics on a technology patent suit filed by French telecommunications giant Alcatel-Lucent SA, giving an upper hand to the Korean handset maker in the litigation, market watchers said yesterday.

A jury in a San Diego federal court on Thursday found LG and Apple did not copy patents, including a video compression technology, held by Multimedia Patent Trust (MPS), a unit of the Paris-based telecommunications equipment maker.

The Alcatel-Lucent subsidiary filed the suit in December 2010, claiming several LG phones had infringed two of its patents.

LG welcomed the verdict.
“We are doing our best to protect the company’s intellectual properties and plan to firmly deal with patent monsters,” the Seoul-based company said in an e-mailed statement.

MPS demanded LG and Apple pay $9.1 million and $172.3 million in damages, respectively. Yonhap