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Appeals Court Vacates Finisar Corp.s Patent Win Against DirecTV, Sends To Lower Court(InvesTrend Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) April 21, 2008 (FinancialWire) A federal court of appeals has sent Finisar Corp.'s (NASDAQ: FNSR) patent infringement suit against DirecTV Group Inc. (NYSE: DTV) back to a lower court, vacating decisions that called for DirecTV to pay Finisar more than $100 million for infringing on an information-transmission patent. The appeals court ruled that the district court that handled the 2006 case incorrectly construed a vital term featured prominently in each asserted claim and made other errors. The court said the errors would affect the validity of the rest of the claims so a new trial is necessary. The patent in question was developed by Finisar co-founder Frank Levinson and involves transmitting and broadcasting digital information. Finisar was awarded $78.9 million by the jury, and the judge overseeing the case tacked on $25 million, as well as ordered interest on the jury verdict. Finisar, which makes high-speed data transmission equipment, had 2007 revenue of $418.6 million. The news sent Finisar's shares down seven cents, or 5.3 percent, to close at $1.24 after hitting a multi-year low of $1.06 earlier in the day. Shares of DirecTV shares rose 34 cents, or 1.3 percent, to close at $25.79. FinancialWire is a fully independent, proprietary news wire service of Investrend Information (a division of Investrend Communications, Inc.). FinancialWire news is written by professional journalists, dedicated to pure journalistic standards. FinancialWire does not receive or accept any compensation from any individual or subject company (or representative thereof) for its news or opinions. All FinancialWire news is available at http://www.financialwire.net . Please address any inquiries to [email protected] . Free annual reports for companies mentioned in the news are available at http://investrend.ar.wilink.com/?level=279 . (Distributed for Investrend Communications, Inc. via M2 Communications Ltd (www.m2.com)) Copyright ? 2008 M2 Communications Ltd. |