Microsoft Has Reached an Agreement with Alacritech

Yesterday, Microsoft reached an agreement with Alacritech which had sued the giant from Redmond for implementing patented technology in future Windows versions without permission.

As a result of this, Microsoft and Broadcom will have access to the patents owned by San Jose based Alacritech, for a fee that has not been disclosed. In exchange, Alacritech will drop all allegations against Microsoft.

Alacritech had obtained a court order against Microsoft acknowledging that the TCP offload technology - entitled Chimney - is illegally used in Longhorn and Windows Server 2003.

Allegedly, Microsoft contacted Alacritech in 1998, and in April 1999 received the complete documentation to implement SLIC technology into Windows; after that, the two companies ceased any contact.

Alacritech considered that Microsoft violated two of its patents referring to scalable networks, respectively US Patent No. 6,427,171 and US Patent No. 6,987,868, both of them entitled Protocol Processing Stack for use with Intelligent Network Interface Device.

"Today's agreement ensures Microsoft customers and partners will be able to realize improved application, server and network performance," said Jawad Khaki, vice president of Windows Networking and Devices at Microsoft.