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10 June 2015Patents

Microsoft feels full force of patent lawsuit

Microsoft has been hit with a claim by StrikeForce Technologies that it infringed patents covering a computer security system.

Last week, the software security company filed a lawsuit at the US District Court for the District of Delaware alleging that Microsoft infringed three of its patents.

The three patents cover a multi-channel computer security system that verifies users who are seeking to use banking and social media websites.

The US Patent and Trademark Office issued patent number 7,870,599 to StrikeForce in 2011, while the two other patents were issued in 2013 and 2014.

StrikeForce sells a security system under the product name ProtectID, which has been available since 2011.

The company said it informed Microsoft about the patents in 2012 but that Microsoft still went ahead with making its Azure Multi-Factor Authentication product, available for its mobile phone devices, which StrikeForce claimed infringes its three patents.

StrikeForce requested that the judge finds Microsoft has wilfully infringed the three patents and actively induced others to infringe them. It requested the damages be trebled.

Mark Kay, chief executive of StrikeForce, said: “We have filed this lawsuit designed to protect this critical StrikeForce asset, which is definitely increasing in importance with consistently troubling news about cyber attacks and cyber thefts.

“We will take whatever action is necessary to protect our intellectual property rights and maximize shareholder value,” he added.

Microsoft had not responded to WIPR’s request for comment at the time of publication, but we will update the story should the company get in touch.

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