Supreme Court Rejects Microsoft Appeal

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court on Monday rejected an appeal from Microsoft Corp., which sought to protect itself from a big-dollar patent ruling.

A jury in 2003 ordered Microsoft to pay $521 million for copying a key piece of technology. An appeals court reversed parts of that decision, but Microsoft argued to the court that it could still be forced to pay hundreds of millions of dollars over computers made and sold outside the United States.

The fight involves computer coding that enables a variety of software applications to work with Web browsers and pits Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft against Eolas Technologies Inc. and the University of California.

The cases are Laboratory Corp. of America v. Metabolite Laboratories, 04-607, and Microsoft Corp. v. Eolas Technologies, 05-288.

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