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What do a telecom equipment giant and the world's biggest software company have in common? Not much but a courtroom. Yet they may still be spending a lot of time together.

A federal jury in San Diego ruled Thursday that Microsoft (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people ) must pay Alcatel-Lucent (nyse: ALU - news - people ) $1.52 billion for infringing on two patents covering MP3 audio compression, a technology so ubiquitous today that it's even present in some fancy dog tags.

As expected, Microsoft will fight the decision. "We think this verdict is completely unsupported by the law or the facts. We will seek relief from the trial court, and, if necessary, appeal," said Tom Burt, corporate vice president and deputy general counsel, in a statement.

In theory, the dispute is about whether or not Microsoft paid the right people to use an MP3 patent developed in part by Bell Labs, Lucent's famed predecessor company, which it now uses in its Windows Media Player. Microsoft says the $16 million it paid Germany's Fraunhofer Institute, which co-developed the technology with Bell Labs, should be adequate. According to reports, Alcatel, which bought Lucent last year for $10.8 billion, says it is owed as much as $4.56 billion.

But this dispute is really part of a bigger stick fight, which started four years ago when Lucent filed 15 patent claims against PC makers Dell (nasdaq: DELL - news - people ) and Gateway (nyse: GTW - news - people ). In April 2003, ever-charitable Microsoft added its name to the list of defendants, saying that the patents were related to its Windows operating system. A judge threw out two claims and split the remaining 13 into six separate trials. Wednesday's was the first, and there are five more pending in California.

But wait, there's more: A similar version of the same dispute may be headed to a court in Delaware. The difference--Microsoft has filed this one, accusing Alcatel of its own patent infringements. And just for good measure, yet another trial is on tap in Texas.

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