Microsoft has been ordered by a U.S. jury to pay $1.52 billion in a patent dispute over the MP3 digital file format, the technology at the heart of the digital music boom.

If upheld on appeal, it would be the largest patent judgment on record.

The ruling, in U.S. District Court in San Diego on Thursday, was a victory for Alcatel-Lucent, the networking equipment company. Its forebears include Bell Laboratories, which was involved in the development of MP3 almost two decades ago.

At issue is the way the Windows Media Player software from Microsoft plays audio files using MP3, the most common method of distributing music on the Internet. If the ruling stands, Apple and hundreds of other companies that make products that play MP3 files, including portable players, computers and software, could also face demands to pay royalties to Alcatel.

Microsoft and others have licensed MP3 - not from Alcatel- Lucent, but from a consortium led by the Fraunhofer Institute, a large German research organization that was involved in the format's development, along with Bell Labs and the French electronics company Thomson. The current case turns on two patents that Alcatel claims were developed by Bell Labs before it joined with Fraunhofer to develop MP3.

"Intellectual property is a core asset of the company," said Joan Campion, a spokeswoman for Alcatel-Lucent. "We will continue to protect and defend that asset."

Thomas Burt, the deputy general counsel of Microsoft, said the company would most likely petition the judge in the San Diego case, Rudi Brewster, to set aside or reduce the judgment. If Brewster does not, Microsoft will probably take the case to the U.S. appeals court in Washington, which hears patent cases.

Microsoft argued that one patent in question did not apply to its MP3 software and that the other was included in the Fraunhofer software that it paid to license.

Further, it argued that the damages sought by Alcatel were unreasonably high, pointing out that it paid Thomson, which represented the consortium in its dealings over the patent, a flat $16 million fee for the rights to the MP3 software.

Alcatel argued that the damages should be based on a royalty of 0.5 percent of the total value of Windows computers sold.

John Desmarais, a partner with Kirkland & Ellis who represented Alcatel, said the proposed damages were consistent with patent law. He said it was not appropriate to compare them with the $16 million Microsoft paid Thomson because the rights to the Bell Labs patents were far more valuable.

"It's like going to the supermarket and paying $1 for a bar of soap," he said. "That lets you use the soap. We were offering the equivalent of the right to make soap any way they wanted."

The jury supported Alcatel's arguments on every count except one.

It deadlocked on the question of whether Microsoft willfully infringed on the Bell Labs patents. If the jury had found that it did, Microsoft would have had to pay triple damages.

"Microsoft has been and to some degree continues to be at a competitive disadvantage, as it did not file for patents for many, many, many years," said Jack Russo, a patent lawyer with Russo & Hale in Palo Alto, California.

That makes it harder, he said, to work out deals with other large companies in which they exchange the rights to each other's patents.

Large companies like AT&T and IBM "have huge patent portfolios and that represents large and unpredictable risks for companies like Microsoft," he said. The judgment is part of a complex litigation by Alcatel to enforce claims related to Bell Labs patents. The case was initially brought against Dell and Gateway, which make computers using Microsoft software. Other trials are pending for technology related to speech recognition, user interfaces and video processing.

Microsoft has countered with a claim, filed with the International Trade Commission, that Alcatel is violating its patents related to messaging technology.

The largest award for a patent infringement case to date was the $909 million that Kodak was ordered to pay in 1990 to Polaroid for violating patents related to instant cameras.

The US military lawyer for Australian Guantanamo Bay detainee David Hicks said Saturday that Hicks would spend years in court and could not get a fair trial before a US military commission. In remarks at a rally in Adelaide, US Marine Corps Maj. Michael Mori noted that the revised military commissions system could not be used to try American citizens and questioned how such a system could then be fair enough for foreign citizens. Mori said that he believed the military tribunals were designed to deliver guilty verdicts and asserted that even if a decision on Hicks' guilt or innocence comes relatively quickly, it would likely take two or more years before an appeal from Hicks or another detainee made it to the US Supreme Court.

Hicks is one of three high profile Guantanamo prisoners facing new charges announced by the US earlier this month. The original charges against Hicks, Canadian Omar Khadr and Yemeni Salim Hamdan and other detainees had to be dropped after the US Supreme Court ruled the original military commissions system was unconstitutional as initially established by presidential order. Hicks was picked up in Afghanistan in 2001 while allegedly fighting for the Taliban. US prosecutors claim that he trained at up to four terrorist camps. The charges against him must still be formally approved, but US Vice President Dick Cheney has said that Hicks will be among the first to be tried  after the DOD's convening authority makes a determination whether a military commission should be convened to consider the charges.

The Democratic-controlled Montana Senate voted 27-21 Friday to give second-reading approval to a bill that would eliminate the death penalty in Montana. Third reading is slated for February 24 before the measure goes to the Republican-controlled state House of Representatives.

Eleven US states have recently suspended the death penalty pending review of the manner in which the death penalty is administered. In early-February, Tennessee governor suspended executions pending procedural review. In January a North Carolina state judge issued an injunction blocking executions there until Governor Mike Easley issues new procedures to execute capital defendants without the presence of doctors. Capital punishment has also been suspended in Florida, California, and New Jersey, Arkansas, Delaware, Maryland, Missouri, Ohio, and South Dakota.

Raymond George Bohning, 59, of Hollywood, Fla., entered a guilty plea in U.S. District Court in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., for preying on children, Assistant Attorney General Alice S. Fisher of the Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney R. Alexander Acosta for the Southern District of Florida, and FBI Special Agent in Charge, Jonathan I. Solomon, announced today.

At a hearing held today before Senior District Judge Jose A. Gonzales, Bohning pleaded guilty to the enticement of a minor to engage in sexual activity, production of images of a child engaging in sexually explicit conduct, distribution of child pornography to a minor to persuade her to engage in sexual conduct, and possession of child pornography.

In November 2003, Bohning traveled from Florida to Birmingham, England, in order to sexually abuse 13 and 15-year-old girls. The father of the 13-year-old girl intercepted a telephone call between his daughter and Bohning upon Bohning’s arrival in the United Kingdom in which he discussed his planned sexual activity with her. The young girl’s father contacted U.K. law enforcement who notified the FBI in Miami. Bohning was arrested in the U.K. and charged with various offenses including possessing and distributing lewd images of minors. A search of his person and hotel room revealed he was in possession of numerous items including: a laptop computer, Viagra pills, Vaseline petroleum jelly, a teenage pornography magazine, and Polaroid images of a teenager engaging in sexually explicit conduct. Bohning pleaded guilty in the U.K. to possessing and distributing indecent images and publishing an indecent article and was sentenced to 30 months in prison. He was subsequently extradited to the United States for prosecution.

An investigation conducted by the FBI revealed that Bohning had an extensive collection of child pornography images depicting minors being sexually abused, including babies and toddlers. The defendant convinced a 15-year-old girl to engage in sexually explicit conduct in order to produce images which he saved; distributed images to a minor in an effort to persuade her to engage in sexually activity with him; and created a list of 374 individuals’ Internet screen or user names, mostly minors whom he catalogued by physical attributes, state or country of residence, and the nature of their sexual experiences.

Bohning faces a mandatory minimum of 15 years in prison and a maximum of 30 years for production of child pornography. The defendant faces a mandatory minimum of five years in prison and a maximum of 30 years for enticing a minor to engage in illegal sexual activity. For distributing child pornography to a minor to induce her to engage in sexual activity, Bohning faces up to 20 years in prison. He also faces up to 10 years in prison for possessing in excess of 600 images of child pornography. Bohning is subject to a fine for each count of up to $250,000 and faces a possible lifetime period of supervised release. A sentencing hearing is currently scheduled for May 11, 2007.

This case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Robin Waugh for the Southern District of Florida, and Deputy Chief Sherri A. Stephan and trial attorney Bonnie Kane, both of the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section of the Criminal Division. This case was investigated by FBI Special Agent Catherine Koontz in Miami, and the West Midlands Police Department in the United Kingdom. The analysis of the computer forensic evidence was accomplished by the High Technology Investigative Unit of the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section.

This case is being brought as part of Project Safe Childhood. In February 2006, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales created Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative designed to protect children from online exploitation and abuse. Led by the United States Attorneys Offices, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as identify and rescue victims.

Judge William R. Wilson Jr. of the US District Court of Eastern Arkansas ruled Friday that the Little Rock School District was "substantially complying" with its Revised Desegregation and Education Plan ("Revised Plan") and released the school district from court supervision. The Little Rock School District voluntarily entered into the Revised Plan in 1998 "as a way of settling...over forty years of more or less continuous desegregation litigation." The Revised Plan required the school district to "substantially comply with hundreds of desegregation obligations in order to achieve unitary status."

In September 13, 2003, Wilson issued a memorandum opinion finding that Little Rock had substantially complied with all of its obligations in the Revised Plan with the exception of one that requires the school district to annually assess and improve the effectiveness of academic programs in improving African-American achievement. The school district unsuccessfully applied for unitary status in March 12, 2004. The Little Rock School District was the location of infamous 1957 confrontation between Arkansas governor Orval Faubus and the federal government following the Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, which outlawed racial segregation in public education.

Cisco has held the trademark "iPhone" since the year 2000. Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled Apple's cellular iPhone at a San Francisco tradeshow in January, despite not having agreed to the terms proposed by Cisco for use of the name. The two companies had been negotiating terms of a deal for several years, and were close to agreeing on terms as late as a few hours before Jobs made his announcement. The lack of an agreement before Apple's unveiling prompted Cisco's suit. Apple argued that Cisco's iPhone, which does not operate on cellular networks, but instead operates over the Internet, was materially different from their own.

Justice Breyer expressed skepticism Wednesday about AT&T's argument, stating that it could pave the way for extensive patent infringement allegations whenever US patented products are copied overseas. Conversely, Justice Kennedy questioned the difference between the master discs supplied by Microsoft and the subsequently copied discs distributed to foreign manufacturers for installation on their computers, while Justice Alito noted that the ease of copying the discs abroad renders Microsoft's distinction "artificial." Chief Justice John Roberts, Jr. recused himself at the start of oral arguments; according to his financial disclosure form, Roberts owns between $100,001 and $250,000 worth of Microsoft stock.