Alcatel

Microsoft Corp. does not have to pay $1.5 billion in damages to Alcatel-Lucent SA, a panel of federal appeals judges has ruled in what may be the last word on a long-running digital music patent lawsuit.

In February 2007, a jury in U.S. District Court in San Diego determined Microsoft infringed on two patents that cover the encoding and decoding of audio into the digital MP3 format, a popular way to convert music from CDs into files on computers and vice versa.

On July 29, shareholders in telecommunications equipment giant Alcatel-Lucent finally got what many have been demanding for months: the resignations of Chief Executive Patricia Russo and Chairman Serge Tchuruk. Russo, the former boss of Lucent Technologies before its 2006 merger with Alcatel, said she'll step down before the end of the year, while former Alcatel chief Tchuruk will leave Oct. 1.

In an industry buffeted by slowdown, Alcatel-Lucent may be taking more than its share of lumps.

The world's largest maker of telecom gear on Apr. 30 reported a larger decline in sales than analysts were expecting and forecast a full-year drop in revenue. The Paris-based company blamed weakness in the U.S. dollar, which erodes the value of sales in the U.S. Excluding currency swings, sales would have risen 6.3 percent, Alcatel said.