Australian inventor settles patent dispute with Microsoft

Ric Richardson, the Australian "man in a van" who has been fighting Microsoft in an eight-year legal battle has settled with the software giant out of court in a deal that could potentially net hundreds of millions of dollars.

In April 2009, a United States court found Microsoft had used Richardson's patented anti-piracy technology without his knowledge or permission, and ordered the software giant to pay compensation of $US388 million (then worth more than $530 million). The award was one of the highest in US patent history.

The verdict was overturned five months later. But early last year an appeals court upheld the original jury's decision that Microsoft had infringed his patent and, up until last week, a trial was under way before a federal jury in Providence, Rhode Island, to determine how much Microsoft should now pay for infringing the patent.

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